Komsomol direction

The Komsomol direction (Комсомольская путёвка) or Komsomol travel ticket was a document of mobilization in the Soviet Union issued by a Komsomol committee to a Komsomol member which directed the member for temporary or permanent shock construction projects (udarnyie stroiki) or military service. Usually the Komsomol direction was associated with relocation to new, poorly settled remote locations: new construction sites ("Komsomol construction sites" (комсомольская стройка)[1]), army service, etc. The travel ticket appeared sometime after adaptation of the Soviet Labor Code as a type of organizational mobilization.

A Komsomol direction for Baikal-Amur Mainline

During the 10th five-year plan with those travel tickets to the shock construction projects arrived over 500,000 young volunteers.[2] Komsomol organizations formed and directed 100 All-Union squads consisting of 80,000 people.[2]

At the construction sites travel tickets recipients were earning labor days (Russian: трудодни, trudodni)[3] which were granted depending on a type of work was performed.

The word "putyovka" normally has meaning of vacationing. During the Soviet period there were "putyovka" for Soviet pioneers to the Artek summer camp, "putyovka" was granted to working intelligentsia, big factories workers and other party committee members for vacationing and health improvement "sanatoriums" that were assigned to the particular factories. Instead, the "Komsomolskaya Putyovka" carried a special meaning.