162 Chapter 4
illustrations depicted the Caucasus Mineral Waters, Crimea, and the Sochi
coast. Moreover, each of these sections included the kind of practical advice
for travelers found in any guidebook the world over: lists of restaurants, ho-
tels, and local attractions and addresses for banks, hospitals, post offi ces, and
other public utilities.^86
The 1951 guide was larger in format and more sumptuously illustrated,
with three times as many photographs as the 1936 edition. The text re-
mained seriously medical, and the chemical composition of every health-
ful mineral spring was duly reported. The book’s organization was rational
and encyclopedic: the health places appeared in alphabetical order, by
republic. Auxiliary information was limited to lists of popular local ex-
cursions, as though all other amenities would be provided by the palaces
of health themselves. Yet if the words said “medicine,” the photographs
said “vacation.” Although the photographs in this edition featured sana-
torium and mineral bath buildings, many more included real vacationing
people as part of the scenery. Photographs of pure scenery were more fre-
quent in 1951, and so were images of people having fun: on the beach, inFamily camping: award-winning coal miner I. A. Potankin, Kemerovo, on holiday with his
family and Moskvich automobile on the shore of the Tom' River, 25 July 1949. Photograph
by L. Velikzhanin, TASS. RGAKFD g. Krasnogorsk, no. 0272728. Used with permission of
the archive.- Kurorty SSSR. Spravochnik (1936) (published with a print run of 15,200 copies and
still available in used bookstores in Moscow).