164 Chapter 4
original goals of the Society for Proletarian Tourism remained embedded in
the itineraries and programs of Soviet tourist bases in the 1950s. At the same
time, sanatoria, rest homes, and tourist bases also catered to the vacationers’
desires for comfort and relaxation, for an escape from regimentation. This
softer direction represented a continuation of the trends begun before the
war, in which movies and dancing had already occupied a large part of the
vacationers’ evenings.
Postwar vacations and tourism continued to be administered by central
state agencies, both the Ministry of Health and the Central Trade Union Coun-
cil. But as before the war, these agencies often lacked the authority necessary
to assert their claims to economic resources over rival agencies. Unless they
started their own auxiliary farms, tourist bases and rest homes were at the
mercy of the Ministry of Trade. Tourism advocates remained torn between
the Tourism-Excursion Authority of the trade unions, which controlled most
of the capital resources for tourist travel, and the local sports organizations.
Vacation putevki were awarded on the basis of work and allocated through
workplace trade union committees. Individuals accepted the putevki that
were offered by their committees; ordinary people had little choice about
where and when to take their vacations. Rarely could they choose with whom
to take them: if husband and wife were employed in different enterprises, it
would be diffi cult for them to arrange to receive matching putevki for a vaca-
tion of their choice.
Tourism, however, had lost ground, both in absolute numbers and in pri-
ority for investment. Already dwarfed by spa and rest home vacations in the
late 1930s, Soviet tourism in the early 1950s most frequently offered alterna-
tive access to a spa-like vacation, not a sightseeing itinerary for its own sake.
Advocates continued to believe that tourism was the best form of vacation,
but tourism agencies proved unable or insuffi ciently energetic to compete for
resources against the dominant Health Resort Administration.
In these respects, the war had only slowed down but did not alter the basic
institutions for and approaches to Soviet leisure travel. But there were also
clear signs of shifting mentalities and new priorities that appeared in vaca-
tion practices, particularly after 1950. Moderation and fl exibility gained new
advocates among kurort and tourism planners. The health resort stay should
provide not just healing but comfort, culture, excursions, and new dining
experiences. The benefi ts of tourist travel included fellowship, wonder, ex-
ercise, and self-reliance, but these did not necessarily require the extreme
physical effort championed by advocates of sporting tourism at their annual
rallies.
The voices of the vacationers themselves gained new authority in the
postwar years, whether expressed through their comment books, in letters to
newspapers, or in the casual encounters between consumers and providers
of leisure travel. The cultural level of the Soviet people had grown, acknowl-
edged kurort offi cials in 1951; now they demanded to be entertained and
educated, they were capable of making their own choices, and they expected