140 Chapter 4
military highways in the Caucasus. Groups had left from Moscow to explore
the unbounded Soviet expanse in the spring and summer of 1945.^31 But the
effort to restore tourism to its 1939 level quickly stalled in the face of compe-
tition from the more prestigious spa and rest home vacations.
At its peak in 1939, the tourist authority had managed a network of 164
tourist bases, but by the end of the war, only 45 of these remained operation-
al, with just under 5,000 spaces for tourists. Tourism suffered not only from
wartime destruction but also from a continuing competition for property. The
much-publicized Moscow House of Tourists, with its central location on the
Arbat, had been requisitioned by the Central Trade Union Council in 1938
in exchange for a more remote location on Moscow’s northeast periphery,
Sokol'niki Park. During the war, even this Sokol'niki location had fi rst served
as a hospital and was then converted to a rest home for expectant mothers.
Tourists choosing itinerary number 1, the fi ve-day tour of “Moscow the capi-
tal of the USSR,” had no place to stay. Leningrad’s prewar “full service” tour-
ist hotel, with spaces for 850 visitors, had been totally destroyed, and another
tourist base had been requisitioned by the city’s procurator. Throughout the
1940s, the central council fought a running battle with other agencies for the
return of property to be used for tourism.^32
Nor did the tourist authority fare better with respect to access to food sup-
plies, staff, or critical equipment like tents and rucksacks. The Ministry of
Trade refused to allocate food rations to tourist bases, which affected not only
tourists but the staff meant to serve them. Central planners, moreover, stipu-
lated that tourist excursion leaders and cultural organizers would receive
salaries of only fi ve hundred rubles a month, compared with one thousand
rubles for those who performed the same jobs in health resort excursion bas-
es; tourism offi cials complained that it was impossible to recruit competent
personnel under such conditions or to retain them once they were trained.
The single Tourist Equipment Factory, managed by the tourist authority, pre-
sented an optimistic fi ve-year production plan for tents, rucksacks, boots,
sleeping bags, and canoes in 1946, but its capacity fell far below demand.
The authority was also continually thwarted in its efforts to secure buses
and automobiles to transport its tourists, so many routes could not actually
function.^33
By 1948 tourism offi cials admitted that this best form of rest had failed to
regain its prewar status. Regional tourist authorities, charged with organizing
tourist visits, had been revived in Moscow, Leningrad, the North Caucasus,- Trud , 7 August 1945; 22 September 1945.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 167 (reports on tourist bases for the 1950 season), l. 9; d.
24, l. 7ob.; d. 39, ll. 52, 107, 37, 146, 172, 180–181, 88; d. 179a (central TEU reports for
1936–1951), ll. 11–12, 17–18. - GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 39, ll. 108, 96; d. 193 (reports on tourist bases for the 1951
season), ll. 15–16; d. 24, l. 115; d. 69 (conference on mass tourism and all-union itineraries,
10 June 1948), ll. 9, 23; Trud , 22 September 1945.