The Proletarian Tourist in the 1930s 117promised end point. When they queried the trip leader, Kholin, about the
route, he allegedly replied, “Go where you want, it’s none of my business.”
Having been told they need not bring their own bed linens, the travelers dis-
covered that the steamship would not provide them either. Kholin himself
had brought eleven sets of linen for the trip, hardly adequate for the thirty
members of the group. The cultural activities aboard the cruise also drew
criticism. The ship offered no library, no table games, and no information on
the sights of the Volga or the fi ve-year plan. When they approached the city of
Samara, the tourists asked Kholin what they should see there, and he replied,
“There is nothing to see in Samara.... Look at the mud: there’s a lot of it in
Samara. There are two museums, an antireligious museum with two rooms
and a museum about the local region. Like all museums of this type, they
aren’t interesting.” After such an endorsement, the tourists said they no lon-
ger cared to stop off here. But the chief problem concerned the lack of food.
The tourists’ ration consisted of three hundred grams of bread a day; meals
were served late and slowly and came with just two glasses of tea a day. The
manager of the ship’s buffet claimed he was not warned that the ship would
carry thirty tourists, and so he had not procured the necessary provisions;
Kholin insisted that his funds for food were also limited. The ship captain
also declined responsibility for food. As a result, tourists had to buy food at
their own expense, and those who had no extra money went hungry. Four
of them left the trip early for this reason, departing the ship in Saratov and
making their own way back home.^73
Another group of tourists never succeeded in boarding their assigned riv-
erboat. M. A. Shestakov wrote to Vecherniaia Moskva about his ill-fated 1932
cruise aboard the steamer Vairam-Ali. His putevka indicated that the cruise
would leave Nizhnii Novgorod on 24 July, but with no other particulars, he
and his group of ten did not fi nd the departure point until after the boat had
sailed. The local OPTE offi cials advised them to catch up to their ship on a
postal boat; the passengers themselves sent a telegram to their ship asking it
to wait for them in the river city of Kazan', but when they arrived, there was
no ship in sight. Some tourists with money continued to try to reach their
cruise ship, but the rest had grown tired of chasing and returned home. My
“vacation,” concluded Shestakov, consisted of not sleeping for six nights,
spending seventy rubles, and having a hot breakfast and dinner only once in
this time. A reporter for Vecherniaia Moskva endured an equally disappoint-
ing cruise: aboard the steamer Dekabrist he asked his waiter what kind of
fi sh was available for dinner. “Pork or veal,” replied the waiter. “How about
sturgeon?” “It’s there in the water.”^74 The campaign to promote “cultured
- TsGA SPb, f. 4410, op. 1, d. 19, ll. 33–35.
- Vecherniaia Moskva , 8 August 1932; the OPTE blamed the insurance fund that dis-
tributed the putevki for the failure to inform travelers about departure times. TsGA SPb, f.
4410, op. 1, d. 398 (OPTE provisional board, 1932), l. 6ob.; Vecherniaia Moskva , 29 July