Restoring Vacations after the War 137the same attentive and sensitive attitude,” there, too, some vacationers were
more equal than others.^21
The restoration of the vacation system in the Soviet Union refl ected the
same economic constraints as those suffered in the rest of the country.^22 Yet
by 1950 the worst of the economic effects of the famine of 1946–47 had been
overcome, and vacation offi cials could set their sights not only on restoration
but on the overdue expansion of the right to rest. The new theme in articles
about vacations in Trud became the amount of money the government was
spending in support of this right. Each spring, news stories on the “beginning
of the kurort season” applauded the numbers of newly expanded or reopened
sanatoria and rest homes.^23 Individually, sanatorium and rest home directors
reported on the increased number of beds, patients served, medical therapies
performed, books in the library, number of courses (and number of choices)
in the meals served. By 1952 a report from the Sochi sanatorium group noted
that the cost of food had declined since 1950, and the quality had improved:
vacationers could expect increased availability of fruit, vegetables, chicken,
fi sh, dairy products, and sweets.^24
The “pleasant life” envisioned by the writer Vyshnevskii implied an un-
derstanding that laboring people did not live by bread alone, and the system
devoted new efforts in 1950 to raise the quality of service provided to the
nation’s deserving vacationers. Here too Soviet offi cials reprised the drive
for “cultured service” that had begun in the 1930s.^25 A campaign designated
as the “all-union review” encouraged staffs in all rest homes and sanatoria
to collaborate on how better to serve their customers and to fi le reports on
what they had accomplished.^26 Acknowledging that the vacation experience
began at the station, staffs reported on how they met resters and transported
them by bus, greeted them warmly upon arrival with glasses of hot tea, and
- GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 21, ll. 4ob., 11ob.
- Donald Filtzer, Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the
Stalinist System after World War II (Cambridge, 2002); Donald Filtzer, The Hazards of Urban
Life in Late Stalinist Russia: Health, Hygiene, and Living Standards, 1943–1953 (Cambridge,
2010). - Trud , 13 July 1949; 7 September 1949; 8 April 1950; 29 August 1950; 15 May 1948; 17
April 1949; 12 April 1950; 10 April 1952. Each summer, a “review of letters” would enumer-
ate the shortcomings still remaining and call the Kurort Administration to account. - GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 77; f. 9493, op. 3, d. 78; TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 576 (con-
ference on the all-union review, March 1950), ll. 4, 16, 25–28; 44; GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d.
1783 (trade union reports on the all-union review, 1950); d. 768 (rest home medical reports,
1950); d. 141 (conference of kurort and rest home managers, September 1952); Gosudarst-
vennyi arkhiv goroda Sochi (GAGS), f. 5, op. 1, d. 79 (Sochi sanatorium group report, 1951),
l. 12. The cost of a Sochi putevka in 1947 had been 7,360 rubles; this had come down to
3,769 by 1951 (ll. 11–12). - Randall, Soviet Dream World ; Hessler, Social History of Soviet Trade.
- Trud , 18 February 1950; 1 April 1950; TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 576, l. 80. A very
similar campaign took place in the Yugoslav tourism industry in 1950. See Duda, “Workers
into Tourists,” 33–68. The Festival of Britain in 1951 also sought to stimulate the economy
through tourist travel to the festival, as publicity on its fi ftieth anniversary in 2011 pro-
claimed.