How an athlete fled to the West in a hot air balloon with his family in 1983

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

People who are forcibly restricted in freedom of movement become very resourceful. To leave the countries of the socialist camp, someone climbed through the Berlin Wall, someone crossed water obstacles on any floating craft, but the two-time champion of Czechoslovakia in cycling Robert Gutyra secretly from the authorities in 1983 built a balloon and managed to cross the border by air. Together with him, his wife and two children left the country.

Robert Gutyra is a man with an amazing will to win. Even as a child, he proved this, having reached the very heights of big sport on his own. For a guy from a village far from the capital, who trained on an old bicycle, even just making his way to the national team is a real achievement. In 1970, the young athlete became the champion of Czechoslovakia and received an invitation to work in Canada. It was from this trip that he got into trouble.

At the last moment, Robert received a letter from sports officials banning him from leaving the country. All documents at that time were ready, tickets were bought … The athlete made a bold decision - he pretended that he had not received anything and still left. He then paid for arbitrariness for a long time. As soon as he returned, his passport was actually taken away and he was banned from participating in international competitions. He had to give up his sports career and, in order to feed his family, the two-time champion of Czechoslovakia went to work as a builder. He did not give up, but when the daughter of an "unreliable" former cyclist failed to get into a good school because of the family's reputation, he decided to flee the country.

In Bratislava, you could catch Austrian television. It was thanks to these "enemy voices" that Robert learned of two families who fled the GDR in a balloon. Czechoslovakia was separated from the nearest Austria by a carefully guarded border - almost the entire territory was fenced off with a grid with electric voltage, but the way to get by air seemed to Gutyra quite real. True, he did not know anything about aeronautics and about balloons, but on the other hand, he did not lack patience and the ability to win.

Under the guise of idle interest, disguising one necessary book with several others, the former athlete studied the topic of interest to him in the libraries. He went to the film ten times, where he caught a glimpse of the device of the balloon burner of interest to him. Surprisingly, from such diverse sources, he really received all the information he needed and began to build the first model of his aircraft. The right materials also became a problem as they needed to be found and purchased without arousing suspicion. At the factory that sewed raincoats, the athlete managed to buy several hundred meters of suitable fabric - supposedly for the boat section.

Despite all the efforts, the first ball did not come out, and it would be strange if a layman could make such a complex unit on the first try. It was not even scary that I had to start all over again, but that the unsuccessful model could not simply be thrown away - this could ruin the whole business, so the fruits of enormous labor, costing a normal car, had to be burned in parts. Despite the setback, the former champion did not give up and started making a second prototype.

This time Gutyra was helped by his wife. On a sewing machine in the basement, she sewed a huge ball, the size of a small house, - 20 meters high and about 17 meters wide. The homemade basket was reinforced with a steel plate from below - in case the border guards start shooting at the violators. The escape was scheduled for the night of September 7-8, 1983. The family told neighbors and acquaintances that they were going to move to another city. The children learned about their parents' plans only two days before the scheduled date. The day before, Robert in several steps transported the balloon to the chosen place - it was six kilometers from the border and was deserted. Hiding his brainchild, the fugitive disguised it with branches. At the time of his escape, Robert was already 39 years old. His 36-year-old wife, 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son fled with him. With them in the basket, they took only two bags with the most necessary things and a racing bike.

The fate was very fortunate for the fugitives. Everything went according to plan. They took off, unnoticed. The border guards in the night sky noticed a strange glow (from a gas burner), and did start firing, but only with flares. Apparently, they never figured out that it flew over them. True, at one point the ball began to rapidly lose height due to a malfunction of the gas cylinder, but Gutyra managed to replace it. After 55 minutes, they managed to land the balloon without running into buildings or power lines - night flights are very dangerous, but Czech fugitives seem to have been born in shirts. The landing turned out to be hard, everyone flew out of the basket, but there were no injuries, and after a while the family walked to the nearest Austrian village of Falkenstein.

Gutyra was not mistaken in making such a difficult decision. After many years, he called him the most successful in his life. The family emigrated to America. Robert was no longer able to go in for big sports - the time was lost, but he earned good money in his second specialty and felt like a free man. Several years ago, Robert Gutyra returned to his native country, where he still lives. Now 76 years old, he is a real local celebrity.

Our country has experienced several waves of emigration. In different eras, for various reasons, people massively left their homes and left in search of a new homeland. For example, Russian Old Believers can be found even in distant Bolivia.