110 Chapter 3
with their own dining rooms and showers. The Library of Proletarian Tour-
ism issued a pamphlet for such tourists along the Volga and Kama Rivers in
1930, its schematic foldout maps indicating the major industrial attractions
and scenic sights along the way. OPTE and later the TEU would charter boats
from the river transport agencies for their package tours, including the new
passages along the White Sea Canal after 1933. By 1936 tourists could choose
from one of seven so-called fl oating rest homes, sailing from Gor'kii to vari-
ous destinations on the Kama and Volga Rivers.^55 The cruise in fact brought
“tourism” and “rest” more closely together than any other vacation possibil-
ity.
By the end of the 1930s, Soviet tourists could also cruise the Black Sea
in comfort. As with river cruises, “the chief pleasure of a sea journey is the
wonderful bracing air, the constant changing of impressions and contempla-
tion of the grandiose picture of sea and shore, which one can obtain only
on a ship.” Oceangoing boats had navigated the Odessa-Batumi route since
the late 1920s: vacationers heading to the Caucasus Black Sea coast resorts
typically journeyed by train to Odessa and then sailed to their fi nal desti-
nation. For 1940, however, the TEU had organized a Black Sea cruise as a
trip in itself, aboard the newly outfi tted Adzhariia , now featuring a concert
hall, library, billiards room, photo lab, and tailor. On a ship that had once
transported 1,100 passengers along the coast, now only 450 tourists would
make a relaxing ten-day cruise from Odessa, visiting all the major attractions
along the way in the expert company of a TEU guide. For 1940, the tourist
agency announced fi fteen sailings for the spring and summer, serving 7,000
tourists.^56 Like the twelve cruise ships commissioned by Germany’s Strength
through Joy, these journeys by sea evoked modernity, comfort, mobility, and
fun, all packaged by the state for the enjoyment of its citizens.^57
Finally, tourist destinations could be found closer to home, although in
desirability they lagged behind the best-traveled routes of the south. “Soviet
Switzerlands” abounded in the hills and valleys of central Russia, especially
in the regions around Moscow and Leningrad. Trade unions distributed pute-
vki to tourist tent camps in these outskirts, where vacationers could live close
to nature, hike, swim, rest, and relax. These local itineraries could acquaint
working people with their own region, rich in history, culture, and scen-- Fedenko, “Vodnyi turizm,” 162; Volga-Volga , dir. Grigorii Aleksandrov, Mosfi l'm,
1938; Povol'zhe , 244; I. I. Fedenko, Volga-Kama. Karta putevoditel' (Moscow, 1930); NSNM ,
no. 10 (1934): 2; N. E. Khrisandrov, “Plovuchie doma otdykha i sanatorii,” Voprosy kurortolo-
gii , nos. 1–2 (1938): 83. - Spravochnik sovtorgfl ota dlia passazhirov po vsem moriam s prilozheniem pute-
voditelia po kurortam i portam Chernogo i Azovskogo morei (Moscow, 1928), 101; NSNM ,
no. 5 (1940): 28; Trud , 12 March 1940. - Baranowski , Strength through Joy. North Americans also fl ocked to Europe in huge
numbers aboard newly inexpensive ocean liners in the 1920s and 1930s, utilizing the excess
capacity of wartime troop transports to create a new tourist class of transatlantic travel. Lor-
raine Coons and Alexander Varias, Tourist Third Cabin: Steamship Travel in the Interwar
Years (New York, 2003).