104 Chapter 3
Nonetheless, the existing sources permit an exploration of the ways in which
this tour incorporated Soviet values, which were simultaneously modern
and socialist.
Despite grand hopes about millions of tourists, we know that the annual
number on these planned routes grew modestly, from about twenty-four thou-
sand in 1930 to nearly eighty-four thousand by 1936. Yet they received the
bulk of the resources of the tourist organizations: food supply, most tourist
base spaces, transportation, and much of the time of the offi ce staff at OPTE
and later the trade union TEU, who devoted their energies to managing the
fl ow and services of planned tourism.^41 The joint-stock company Sovtur had
operated 29 routes in 1929, ranging in length from ten to forty days; in 1930
Sovtur (before the merger into OPTE) expanded its offerings to 77 routes. By
1933 the OPTE had developed 106 all-union excursion itineraries, but in fact
many of these failed to attract tourists: the year produced a fi nancial fi asco for
the tourist organization, and in 1934 OPTE scaled back to just 31 routes, the
same level as in 1929. Gradually, OPTE consolidated and adjusted its offer-
ings: when the trade unions took over responsibility for tourism in 1936, they
offered 50 itineraries on which aspiring Soviet tourists could choose to spend
their vacations. In 1938 the trade union tourist organization’s fi rst published
guide to Soviet tourism listed 64 routes ranging in duration from fi ve days in
Moscow or Leningrad to twenty-three days hiking and driving the Ossetian
Military Highway.^42
Sovetskii Turist and the Society for Proletarian Tourism had divided their
package tours into three categories. Regional ( kraevedcheskii ) tours acquainted
travelers with geography, fl ora, fauna, and social life in unfamiliar terri-
tories. On industrial tours, workers would observe production processes in
new settings; and on agricultural tours, tourists would witness the achieve-
ments of socialist farming. Agricultural tourism failed stunningly to appeal
to Soviet vacationers: in 1932, only 980 tourists chose a collective farm
itinerary, just 14 percent of the number planned. In that year, 9,000 tourists
joined industrial itineraries (73 percent of the plan), but 27,000 tourists se-
lected a regional tour, 108 percent of the planned traffi c. By 1934, when the
OPTE published its fi rst brochure, “Where to Go,” industrial and agricultural
destinations had disappeared as the focus of publicity.^43 Soviet tourists, like
their counterparts in Germany and the United States, wished to explore dif-
ference, see unfamiliar landscapes, and become acquainted with the variety
of their country’s attractions, whether urban or rural. Industrial tours were- See chapter 2. There were 38,000 package tourists, apparently, in 1932. TsGA SPb,
f. 4410, op. 1, d. 398 (OPTE presidium, 1932), l. 8; dd. 19–20 (OPTE provisional board,
1930); NSNM , no. 7 (1932): 6, reports on planned excursion activity for 1931. - Sovetskii Turist, Marshruty ekskursii na leto 1929 goda ; Sovetskii Turist, Marshruty
ekskursii na leto 1930 goda ; NSNM , no. 13 (1933): 4; no. 4 (1934): 13; no. 9 (1935): 2; no. 4
(1936): 30; Trud , 21 March 1936; Puteshestviia po SSSR , 206–212. - TsGA SPb, f. 4410, op. 1, d. 398, l. 8; NSNM , no. 4 (1934): 13; Vecherniaia Moskva ,
26 May 1934.