The Proletarian Tourist in the 1930s 111ery. In 1939, for example, tourists could choose ten-day itineraries based in
Zvenigorod, Moscow’s “Switzerland,” in Petrozavodsk north of Leningrad,
at Tolstoy’s Yasnaia Poliana estate, or in a boating camp on the Oka River in
Tula oblast. Judging by the persistent criticism in the tourist press, develop-
ing local routes ranked low on the list of priorities for tourism organizations,
who preferred to hand out putevki on national routes managed by the central
TEU apparatus.^58
Even less ambitious from the standpoint of authentically purposeful
tourism, the so-called radial itineraries allowed the tourist to stay in one
base for the duration of the tour, “radiating” outward on optional day or
overnight excursions. Determined to preserve the purposeful meaning of
tourism, offi cials labeled this type of itinerary “balneological” tourism, an
ideal way to recover from nervous stress and overwork without having to
fi nd a place in a sanatorium or rest home, but it soon became clear that
these tours were nothing more than an alternative way to obtain a scarce spa
- Vecherniaia Moskva , 11 June 1937; Skorokhodovskii rabochii , 10 June 1932; KP , 11
May 1935; A. Usagin, “Vnimanie mestnomu turizmu,” NSNM , no. 1 (1930): 14–15; no. 16
(1931): 2–3; no. 25 (1931): 2; no. 4 (April 1938): 2.
A tourist outing to Lake Krylovo in the Moscow countryside, 1940. RGAKFD g. Krasnogorsk,
no. 420062. Used with permission of the archive.