152 Chapter 4
staff did not enforce compliance with the regime, and they praised those doc-
tors and nurses who provided caring and knowledgeable treatments.^58
Medical treatments would repair the laboring person’s body. High-
quality programming was equally important for their cultural, political,
and social development. During these precious hours and days away from
work, Soviet laboring people deserved to receive continuing education
that would make them better citizens and better human beings. Entertain-
ment for its own sake was inappropriate for Communist vacationers, and
cultural activists debated the correct balance between purposeful leisure
activities and pure play. “We need entertainment,” argued an offi cial at
a 1951 congress, “but within strict limits.” Others admitted that cultural
work before the war had focused too much on amusement, but now the
cultural levels and demands of the Soviet people had grown suffi ciently
that they needed to be entertained and educated.^59 The New Soviet Person
demanded no less.
Beginning in 1950, therefore, cultural programming emerged as a new
priority. In the big resort towns like Yalta and Sochi, vacationers, patients,
and tourists alike could partake of central facilities such as cinemas, the-
aters (some with their own jazz orchestras), libraries, and parks. Sochi’s
Park Riviera reopened in 1950, offering to its visitors an outdoor theater,
a table games pavilion, sports equipment, a library-reading room, and a
public beach. Individual sanatoria and rest homes also organized their
own activities for patients and vacationers: the wealthiest ones built their
own auditoriums ( kluby ) with seating for several hundred spectators, but
many more made do with makeshift entertainments outdoors or in the din-
ing room.^60 Ideally, every minute of the day would be occupied in useful
and varied activities, as described by a Moscow oblast sanatorium’s ten-
day plan for each of the four daily “activity periods.” The plan included
outdoor walks or billiards tournaments in the morning; dancing, reading
aloud, or table games at noon; lectures, quizzes, dance lessons, games, and
mass song in the early evening; and movies and concerts at night. More
typically perhaps, vacationers could expect morning exercises, a walk in- TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 949, l. 12; GAGS, f. 24, op. 1, d. 412 (correspondence with
editors of Krasnoe znamia [Sochi], 1952), l. 20; GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 1902 (reports and
comment books, 1952–53), ll. 8, 11, 14; GAGS, f. 24, op. 1, d. 498 (correspondence with edi-
tors of Krasnoe znamia , 1954), l. 36; f. 178, op. 1, d. 9, ll. 2, 8, 10ob., 11ob., 16ob., 21, 25ob.,
27ob., 33; Trud , 29 August 1950; 18 June 1952. - TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 706 (directors’ and sanatorium staff conference, January
1951), ll. 29, 30, 60, 66–67; GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 1660, l. 37. - GAGS, f. 24, op. 1, d. 368 (correspondence with editors of Krasnoe znamia , 1951), l.
81; d. 460 (correspondence with editors of Krasnoe znamia , 1953), l. 31; d. 355 (materials on
cultural work, 1950–1953), ll. 7ob., 23; GARF, f. 9493, op. 3, d. 1982 (conference to review
cultural work, June–July 1949), l. 44; the club at the Monino sanatorium in Moscow seated
four hundred, with a green room, coat room, toilets, and billiards. TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1,
d. 706, l. 25.