Tourist rug - a rug used for thermal insulation between the body of a lying person and the soil, as well as to increase the comfort of a tourist’s sleep and to protect the sleeping bag from moisture and damage. The mat is placed on the bottom of the tent, floor or directly on the ground.
The name "karemat"
In the book “Everest 82” (on the ascent of Soviet climbers to Everest in 1982), the word “karemat” is used to denote a tourist rug.
The name Karrimat itself (in Russian literature there are two spellings of the word - “karimat” or “karemat” ) came from the same-name rugs produced by the English company Karrimor , founded in 1946 and which has been producing camping equipment and shoes since then.
Foam rugs
The cheapest and most common type of tourist rugs in Russia. In colloquial speech they are often referred to simply as “foams”, “karematy”, “tourist rugs”. A more complete and accurate name is closed-cell foam mats.
By its design, it is a sheet of foamed insulating material. Most often from radiation-crosslinked and chemically foamed polyethylene , much less from EVA- ethylene vinyl acetate and foamed sevilen. Typical foam mat thickness is 8-10 mm [1] (however, much thinner (up to 3 mm) or thicker (up to 16 mm) mats are also found). The most famous in Russia were “Izhevsk foams” (produced by the Izhevsk plastic factory ), as the first massively accessible tourist rugs.
Foam mats favorably with inflatable mats in their absolute insensitivity to cuts and punctures, so that they can be used without fear on almost any surface, including sharp stones, etc. But at the same time, this type of mats takes up a lot of volume when carrying and is less convenient for sleep than thicker inflatable rugs.
- ↑ How to choose a modern tourist rug . Palatking.ru (2014).