Travelers and hikers: how and where did the Soviet people rest?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

More and more Russians prefer to relax at home in the summer: about a third of citizens did not leave the city where they live during their holidays. And if they leave, they book hotels and tickets on their own without the help of tour operators. Meanwhile, in the USSR, they adhered to a different opinion - each family tried to travel: they improved their health in sanatoriums, and the most fortunate ones managed to go abroad. True, this was not easy to do. Gazeta. Ru recalls how and where Soviet people rested.

According to the latest poll by VTsIOM, more than a third of Russians spent their holidays at home. At the same time, 27% of respondents took a break from work in the country, 11% visited neighboring cities, and only 10% and 8% went on vacation to the resorts of the Russian south and abroad, respectively.

At the same time, those who nevertheless decided to go abroad and to the Russian seas used the services of independent travel aggregators and did not buy package tours from operators. Such, according to the VTsIOM poll, was about 80%. As arguments against travel agencies, Russians cite high prices for package tours, poor travel organization and the risk of travel agency bankruptcy. In addition, a quarter of Russians said they like to book and choose hotels on their own without the help of an operator.

Meanwhile, in the USSR, it was an honor to rest on the seas and resorts, and the very idea of travel not in their native lands was elevated to an absolute.

Sanatorium, hike and a new peak

Tourism in the USSR was closely related to health and the development of the native land. The government tried to encourage citizens to travel around the country. Campaign posters said: "Tourism is the best vacation", "Travel through the Caucasus Mountains" and "I saved up money in the Savings Bank, bought a ticket to the resort."

Soviet tourism is a vacation in a sanatorium, and rest by "savages" on the beaches of the country, and even trips abroad. But in the 1920s it all started with a hiker. The first Soviet tourist organization, the Bureau of School Trips, appeared. Trade unions began to organize excursions for adults. These were multi-day hikes along the routes that became all-Union: route 30 - three weeks on foot in the mountainous Caucasus, route 58 - 345 km by boat along the Ural river Chusovaya.

In the Stalin era, active tourism continues to develop, at the same time, rest homes and sanatoriums are gaining popularity, where you can get on a ticket from the trade union.

“The Soviet resort is, first of all, a health resort, a place where health is being repaired, where they rest after a lot of work done and get recharged for work in the future.

And the resort becomes such a place only due to the special qualities of the nature that surrounds it,”wrote the magazine“Soviet Architecture”in 1929, emphasizing that nature is not a decoration, but“a working part of the resort system”.

And the health resorts were working. "I lost a kilo and a half on your steam bath!" - complained the hero of the 1936 film "Girl in a hurry to date".

In the era of Khrushchev, extreme tourism received an impetus. Student youth is even more active in rafting along rivers and conquering mountains. "We are choosing a difficult path, dangerous, like a military path," - the song of Vladimir Vysotsky sounded in the film "Vertical", and, of course - "Only mountains can be better than mountains." In addition, at that time they begin to relax in a "wild" way - for example, they rent a room on their own in a city by the sea.

Russo Touristo Morality

Despite the fact that the "Iron Curtain" since the 1920s allowed limited information about life in other countries, people knew about the abundance of commodities abroad. Thousands of Soviet citizens were eager to buy something abroad and see how everything really is. However, only a few succeeded. After applying to the trade union, the future Soviet tourist had to overcome several levels of "filtration". The organization of the tours was in charge of the monopoly travel agency Intourist.

The local committee drew up a characteristic for the applicant, affecting both personal and work life, and moral qualities. “Comrade S. takes the most active part in public life … He is politically literate, morally stable, modest and disciplined in everyday life, enjoys authority and respect among workers,” the historian Sergei Shevyrin gives an example.

Then the characteristics were approved by the district or city committee of the CPSU, and then the secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU and, by all means, by the head of the KGB department. The reasons for the refusal could be very different, they were usually not explained to the applicant. For example, a divorced person could be made "restricted to travel abroad."

The first tourist groups from the USSR went abroad in the late 50s. Most of the vouchers were to socialist countries, for example, the GDR or Czechoslovakia. In the 60s and 70s, it became fashionable to travel to Bulgaria by the sea. Tours to socialist countries cost about 200 rubles. For example, in 1962 a ticket to Czechoslovakia for 14 days without a road cost 110 rubles. The salary of a worker after the monetary reform of 1961 was 70-150 rubles.

One or two groups a year were sent to France or England, Austria, Canada, USA. There were also sea cruises in the Mediterranean (500-800 rubles), exotic tours to Africa and Japan (600-900 rubles).

Behind Jeans: Savvy Savvy

The "Rules of Conduct for Soviet Citizens Traveling Abroad" stated: "During their stay abroad, Soviet citizens, using the available opportunities, should in a skillful manner explain the peaceful foreign policy of the Soviet government." Each tourist was supposed to be a kind of promoter of the Motherland in the capitalist world and the countries of the socialist camp.

Before the trip, the group was gathered for conversations, during which they explained how to behave abroad, talked about the traditions and customs of the country. Tourists were especially eager to buy something while traveling, there was a hunt for a shortage - jeans, books, equipment. They brought wool from Yugoslavia - they took knitting needles with them and knitted shawls on the trip, and on arrival they unraveled them. Jeans were brought with special joy - they could be sold at home for 100 rubles. It was possible to carry one pair, but some managed to bring several, sometimes putting on all the pairs on themselves.

The voucher did not imply any amateur performance - walking only in a group with a leader. The program necessarily included a solemn visit to factories and factories with speeches and memorable gifts. The team leader then wrote the trip reports - “the behavior of the tourists was correct. The participants in the trip behaved modestly, with the dignity of Soviet people. " But there were also those: "Inclined to drink and seek thrills … Did not spend the night in the room."

“The teacher of English P., when visiting England in July 1961,“because of her sociable nature, very easily entered into various acquaintances during the trip,”as a result of which several Englishmen invited her to a restaurant and take a car ride through the evening city. The meeting took place, but at the insistence of the group leader, at the hotel where the tourists lived, and in the presence of “three Soviet people, including an escort,” researchers Igor Orlov and Alexei Popov cite another example from the report in their book “Through the Iron Curtain”.

A trip abroad was a great event for a Soviet person, I wanted to share my impressions with everyone. They often delightedly told friends and acquaintances about the cleanliness of the streets, the abundance of goods in shops and dishes in restaurants. However, the stories were followed closely. The district committees were asked to "help them in correctly highlighting their impressions when conducting conversations among workers and employees." In total, from the mid-1950s to the collapse of the USSR, more than 40 million people have traveled abroad.

Tourist - sounds proudly

The massive development of domestic tourism in the Soviet Union falls on the 70s. At that time, many standard sanatoriums were being built, it becomes easier to get a ticket to a holiday home. In 1971-1975, the number of tourist centers, hotels, campings was brought to almost 1 thousand, the volume of tourist and excursion services increased over five years from 260 million rubles. per year to 1 billion in 1975. That year, the number of people who spent their holidays and vacations outside of their permanent residence reached 140-150 million people, which is about 20% of the total number of tourists in the world.

For travel on vouchers of trade union, youth and children's tourist organizations, there were preferential transport tariffs.

33% of all vacationers in the 70s are industrial workers and office workers, 28% are engineers and the creative intelligentsia. They are followed by students, collective farmers and pensioners.

In 1972, the all-Union regional study expedition of schoolchildren "My Motherland - the USSR", which had begun before the war, was resumed. The guys traveled to Lenin's places of the route "Lenin is still more alive than all living things", went "To the secrets of nature" in the biological direction, and also studied "Art belongs to the people" and "In the everyday life of great construction projects." The title of tourist was honorary. It is no coincidence that the insignia "tourist of the USSR" and "Young tourist of the USSR" existed. To get the badges, it was necessary to complete a number of tasks.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the collapse of the unified tourist and excursion system. The lowest level of the number of tourists since the beginning of perestroika was recorded in 1992 - about 3 million people.