EN
In the second half of the 1960s consent to tourist trips to socialist countries instantly affected the development of an unofficial trade exchange involving, on a literally mass-scale, the citizens of those countries, with the Poles, the Hungarians and the Yugoslavs in the forefront. The purpose of the 'tourist trade' was to obtain commodities unavailable, expensive or difficult to purchase at home as well as to make a profit. This is the reason why the phenomenon, which fulfilled various social needs, was to a considerable extent tolerated (if not outright inspired) by the authorities. In the course of a single decade the 'tourist trade', which increasingly often transcended also the Iron Curtain, resulted in a professional penetration of markets and recognition of the scale of the existing shortages, requirements, potential and profits and, as a consequence, in devising new supra-system commercial strategies, quite independent of state institutions.