A LITTLE CHRONICLE OF THE “ALPE ADRIA( ALPS-ADRIA)“ 50.YEARS JUBILEE NATURIST MEETINGS 1972 – 2022.

How it all started – from the meeting of THREE COUNTRIES to the ALPE ADRIA meeting, according to INF President Ivo Sieglinde:

Milestones of friendship across language borders and countriesMangart, that 2,678-meter-high border mountain in the eastern Julian Alps, has symbolic significance for decades of friendship between naturists from Friuli, Slovenia and Carinthia.

The KSVW was invited to a meeting of the three countries at Mangart for Sunday, September 23, 1973. The initiator was the Italian club “Liburnie” from Trieste. The host was the association “Koversada” in Ljubljana, which was founded this spring. The Carinthians met early in the morning and drove over Tarviso to the Predil pass. At the junction with Mangartstrasse, all the usual terms for motorways have ended. Some took the time to climb to the top. The people of Trieste arrived on time, we saw them from our ascent far abovehuts. As we reached the bottom again, the Yugoslav delegation arrived. Shy greetings followed, until the “Chianti” they took with them improved their mood. Romano Mantani, President of Liburnia, was the first to speak. He was followed by RigjepTofani from the club “Koversada” and Johann Puschl from KSVW. In order to deepen contacts, it is proposed to organize naturist spa meetings in the spa. As early as November 24 and 25, 1973, this 2nd meeting of the three countries took place in the DolenjskeToplice thermal baths. The 3rd meeting (1974) was held at the KSVW in Klagenfurt-Viktring, Trieste came by bus, and Slovenians with several cars, guests were accommodated in nearby restaurants or with members of the KSVW and FKK. The Wörthersee area shone in the ornaments of the flags of the three nations. In the following years, there were again meetings in Lanterna Solaris and Valalta, in which members of the Carinthian Association of Light also participated for the first time. The 6th Meeting of the Three Countries (1977) already had more than 100 participants. Ferrari’s fountain field is welcomed. President of ÖNV prof.dr. Loschek of Vienna and President of Helios Ludwig Dorsch of Styria extended the meeting to regional. The 10th meeting of the three countries (1982) was organized by the Slovenes on Koversada. However, accommodation in widely spaced complexes made smooth communication almost impossible. The Slovenians also invited the president of the Bavarian Naturist Association to a final meeting of officials, who offered a partnership with BNV in the coming years. As a result, it was decided to hold the next meetings under the name “Alpe Adria Meeting”. Already in 1985, the number of participants at the “3rd Alpe Adria Meeting” was listed as 500, and at the 5th Alpe Adria Meeting (1987) in Monsena, 900 participants fromCroatia, Slovenia, Northern Italy, Austria, Hungary and Bavaria. INF President McCombe, who was also present, designated the largest gathering of naturists.

In 1993, the 21st meeting was held. At the 1992 anniversary celebrations, it was decided to consolidate the number of meetings. In 1978, 1979, 1983 and 1984, the meeting took place in Solaris. From 1985 to 2004 in Monsena. 2005 to 2007 in Kazela, and from 2009 we were allowed to hold the meeting again in Solaris.

So, this year we are celebrating our 50th anniversary and I hope that we will have the opportunity to meet here for many more years.

And here is a small review by JerkoSladoljev, FKK chronicler from Top Camping Poreč:

Although it has been held mostly in Croatia for half a century, this international naturist meeting has passed almost unnoticed in our media space. Alpe Adria Meetings or Alpe-Adria-Treffen is an international sports meeting with various naturist sports competitions. Nothing unusual about that, but behind the meeting is the whole of European history and a handful of interesting facts.

The meeting was initiated in 1972 at the 13th World Congress of Naturists in Vrsar, the first of its kind in a then communist country, which is for Europein itself was a paradox sui generis. The idea of ​​several initiators (Romano Mantani, Italy and Ludwig Goetz, Bavaria, Germany, RegjepTofani,Yugoslavia.) was to gather once a year all naturist associations from countries that are geographically in the Alps Adria, and once belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as a conglomerate, composed at the time of various people.

In the last fifty years, naturist associations have met once a year in our naturist camps in Istria at sports meetings (they were also called tolerance meetings). Thus, Germans (Bavaria), Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Slovenes, Italians (Trieste) and of course the host Croats took part in this meeting, with the addition of Germans (from Bavaria) who were among the founders of the gathering.

Meetings are characterized by the following sports: volleyball, table tennis (single / double), beach volleyball, tennis, tug of war, chess and various children’s games.

The event was a resounding success that was always reflected in the mass presence of naturists. The most massive gathering took place in 1993. in the naturist camp Monseni Rovinj (today textile camp Amarin) with 700 naturists gathered while the Homeland War was still going on in Croatia, which was also a proof of the loyalty of our guests and friends from Europe.

It should be noted that RTV Ljubljana in 1976. After these meetings, she made the first naturist documentary film “Naked Truth” directed by SasaMrvaljevic, M.Sc. Also, in 1978 in Solaris, the first Association of Naturist Centres of Croatia was initiated, later a threat to KUH. And last but not least, 1974. The first naturist exhibition of books, magazines, newspapers and other publications was organized in Solaris during the Alpe Adria meeting, and the exhibition was then covered by RTV Ljubljana and Bavarian Television for the tour operator Tourop from Munich.

Today, this event has officially become part of the meetings of the International NaturistFederation (INF-FNI), which proposes it to all European naturists every year.

Romano Mantani

He tried in every way to combine the Central European traditions of Trieste with the ideal and federal needs that imposed the imposed directions of development of Italian naturism. It was also his idea to adapt the significant attribute of ‘humanist’ to Liburnia … ”

Mantani was a modest and shy person, at the same time imposing, capable and creative, he had good relations with the German, Croatian and Slovenian worlds about which he knew languages ​​well, and above all he knew how to gather naturists of other languages. Let us remember the Alps-Adriatic initiative. To understand the great merits, also of international socialization, gained by Libumia and its President Romano Mantani, it suffices to look back at the now historic Meeting of the Three Countries, then called Alpe-Adria since 1983. Founded on September 23, 1973. at the initiative of Trieste, Alpe-Adria was initially a meeting of Trieste, Austrians and Yugoslavs in Koversada. A few dozen at first. Increasing the number of participants, after the “Hütte auf demMongart”, a mountain border town in the heart of the Julian Alps, which was the first point of contact, the meeting always had new locations: Trieste, Ljubljana, Wörthersee, Rutar Lido, Solaris / Parenzo and finally 1985. Monsena Naturist Center near Rovinj because the participants exceeded six hundred people! After the decline in the number of participants after the Homeland War, in Croatia in 1997 the participants exceeded eight hundred participants. Interestingly, while initially there was a local meeting of naturists from three neighbouring countries (soon joined by Germany), since 1993, representatives of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary.

Since 1989, the initiative has been sponsored by the then President of the International Naturist Federation (INF-FNI) Karl J. Dressen, who organized roundtables on the problems of international naturism with regard to Croatian naturist structures for which a meeting was held. friendship of the three neighbouring countries, has taken on an international dimension with the ideological and moral support of the International Naturist Federation. Statistics 

In the 50 years of naturist meetings, the ALPE ADRIA gathering was attended by over 20,000 naturists, who spent about 80,000 nights in predominantly Croatian naturist camps.

The organization was mostly in the hands of INF – International Naturist Federation over 20 times, 19 times organized by Monesene – Jadranturista Rovinj, 3 times organized by KSV Wörthersee Austria, DN from Slovenia and Croatia and 2 times by the naturist society Liburnia from Trieste. As for naturist camps as meeting places, it is mostly organized in Monsena Rovinj (today Amarin, textile camp), then Solaris opposite 18 times and then less than three times in Kažela, Valalta, Koversada, Wörthersee Austria and Therma Dolenjska in Slovenia. As for the national structure of naturists, most of them were always from Germany and the tone was mostly from Bavaria, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, but also Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine.

CHRONICLE BY YEARS AND ORGANIZERS OF THE MEETING