So Trostyan started

As for us, the history of Trostyan mountain was started in 1967, when associate professor of the chair for lifting-transport machines at the Lviv Polytechnical University Y. Mykolsky charged two students of the 4th year A. Lawitskyj and I. Kusio to design a 200 m long ski lift for the university ski center in Slavsko village, Lviv region as their term papers. During the same year all the constructive parts of the developed installation were fabricated in university workshops, the lift was   installed and commissioned successively. And in summer 1968 A. Lavitsky interrupted his practice in Sverdlovsk and as a student who already had a small experience with rope installations was introduced to Anatoly Vasilyevich Arkhangelsky, deputy chairman of the Lviv regional council of the sport union Dynamo.

- Tomorrow we're going to Slavske, - announced Arkhangelsky.

No sooner said than done. The next day in Volga car they drove up to the old wooden two-story building of the Dynamo sports center in Slavske, in the courtyard of which a pile of metal parts was found. It was the first ski lift of Czech production VL1000 for the Trostyan mountain. It was proposed to start building of ski routes on Trostyan by the head coach of “Dynamo” on alpine skiing Mr. V. Temirov, recently transferred to Lviv from the Middle Asia.

- You can obtain drawings for this iron in “Soyuzprommekhanizatsiya”, - told Arkhangelsky and sent A. Lawitskyj on a business trip to the capital.

Despite the package of technical documentation he have got in Moscow was about 10 times less as needed nowadays for building of a smallest ski lift, it made a lot of difficulties: there were building drawings and longitudinal profile of the rote as well, and student Lawitskyj had any experience neither in civil engineering nor in geodesy. That is why he asked his father, road-building engineer Stephan Lawitskyj to help him.

The first estimation of the drawings led to very disappointing conclusions: massive fundaments of the masts and stations could not be built by Lviv “Dynamo” itself since there were no roads on Trostyan. Such a difficult measure as temporary roads for delivery of concrete and metallic tails would damage a grass covering of the slope. That is why an original solution has been proposed: instead of massive fundaments a light and elegant metallic construction from steel pipes which allowed to keep all the engineering marks and fix secure the masts in the ground. Massive concrete fundaments were built for the stations only.

All the structures of the lift installation 1148 m in length, including over 2300 m of a steel  rope, were transported by the “live force” – a platoon of soldiers.

On January 2, 1969 the first ski lift on Trostyan was successfully put into operation. In  summer 1969 a new ski lift on Pogar mountain was built as well. This project was a graduate work of A. Lawitskyj.

Meanwhile, there was a need to provide lifts for a super giant slalom rope over 2 km in length and a height drop of 520 m, which would satisfy the requirements of the International Ski Federation (FIS). For this purpose the ski lift from the mountain area Shandrovka was transported to the central area of Trostyan. This project was developed under the technical control of a young engineer A. Lawitskyj. On January 2nd 1969 the lift was successfully commissioned.

 In the period 1971-1973, 4 more lifts were built on the slopes of Trostyan (parallel to the central, northern, upper and lower western).

An idea to construct ​​a chairlift on the Trostyan mountain 2700 m in length arose in 1972. Lviv branch of Dynamo ordered a project in Soyuzprommekhanizatsia, the project of foundations of the masts was carried out by A. Lawitskyj. According to the completed project, it was necessary to order many different components at various enterprises of the USSR - from Leningrad to Kuibyshev; such a mission in conditions of the planned economy was extremely difficult, almost impossible. A certain case helped. In 1973 a meeting was held in Lviv on introduction of an all-Union product quality management system. It was attended by the leaders of almost all the headquarters. After long meetings, speeches and discussions, the leaders wanted to rest and relax. The first sauna in the city was near the Dynamo pool in Lviv. Because of the small areas there was a timetable for sauna attendance and only Anatoly Arkhangelsky was a regular visitor. As a result, to the end of the meeting, he had in his hands applications for all the necessary components, signed by the respective ministers and vice-ministers.

When designing the foundations of the stations and twenty-four masts of the chairlift, the problem of transporting building materials in mountain conditions appears. Therefore, the idea of ​​drilled piles started up, that allowed to save resources and time, as well as to maintain slope of Trostyan in initial ecological condition. For drilling the ATL-5 military pull tractor with UGB-50A driller upon it was used.

At that time Ph.D. student for the chair of Machine Dynamics A. Lawitskyj began to develop a methodology computer simulation of multi-span rope systems. Such a development was a topic of his dissertation and formed the basis of the modern system of automated design of rope installations. Theoretical calculations were tested in practice by the operation of ski lifts and ropeways.

Construction of the chairlift started in 1975 and finished in 1976.

In total six ski lifts and one chairlift have been built during 1968-1976 in Slavske. At that time Slavske became the best ski center of the USSR.