176 Chapter 5
medicine begun in the nineteenth century. But whereas Vichy and Sarato-
ga Springs had been supplanted in the late twentieth century by Club Med
and Disneyland, offi cials insisted on the necessary role of mineral waters in
Soviet vacation palaces. The head of the Leningrad Kurort Administration
touted the mud and water reserves in the Novgorod region as a reason to
invest in new kurort facilities there.^23 Even as Sochi surpassed the Cauca-
sus Mineral Waters group as the most prestigious vacation destination, its
identity as an all-union kurort remained linked to its mineral water baths.
The discovery of healing springs at nearby Matsesta had given the impetus
for the development of Sochi as a holiday destination in 1910, and the con-
nection remained. Matsesta is “the heart of Sochi,” wrote the resort’s fi rst
party secretary in 1967, and surrogates elsewhere received the name Siberian
Matsesta or Saratov Matsesta, not the Siberian Sochi. A former staff member
recalled the miracle of Matsesta in a 2004 interview, describing a visit of Leo-
nid Brezhnev. The general secretary was so crippled that he could ascend the
stairway to the bath building only with the support of an aide on each arm,
but he emerged a few hours later able to walk unassisted, and he even danced
a little jig for the benefi t of onlooking staff.^24
Alongside morning mineral baths, strictly rationed by appointment, So-
viet health spa visitors could also expect and came to feel entitled to a whole
range of medical therapies. In the immediate postwar years, the main goal
had been simply to restore the ravaged medical offi ces to their prewar func-
tionality. Over the course of the next decades, new medical services entered
the standard regime, and older services were upgraded with new technology
and equipment: sunlamps, oxygen therapy, and X-ray for diagnostics.^25 Many
sanatoria and rest homes had already introduced dental clinics beginning in
the 1950s. Toward the end of the 1960s came reports of the use of nuclear
medicine, including radioisotope therapy and electrophysiology. By 1972
some sanatoria were offering their patients psychiatric electrotherapy. Ku-
rort doctors in Sochi and Kislovodsk had begun to use Dictaphones in order
to free up more time for patient care.^26 Diagnostic and laboratory facilities- GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 227 (kurort offi cials’ conference, February 1961), l. 18; d.
1669, ll. 26, 160. - M. Ia. Rudakov, “Sochi-Matsesta k 20-letniiu Oktiabria,” Voprosy kurortologii , no. 5
(1937): 37–43; Trud , 3 September 1957; S. F. Medunov, “Gorod, kotoryi prinadlezhit vsem,”
Ogonek , no. 6 (February 1967): 17; Trud , 6 March 1969; 30 March 1962; Sovetskaia imperiia.
Sochi ( The Soviet Empire: Sochi ), dir. Elena Kaliberda, Telekanal Rossiia, 2004. I am grateful
to Julian Graffy for giving me a copy of this video. - TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 1252 (kurort offi cials’ conference, March 1956), l. 125;
GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 428, ll. 16, 73; op. 8, d. 326, l. 11; d. 326, l. 348; d. 1088 (kurort of-
fi cials’ conference, November 1968), l. 6; GAGS, f. 24, op. 1, d. 712 (correspondence with
Krasnoe znamia editors, 1957), l. 1. - Trud , 25 May 1966; GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 1669, ll. 153, 104, 111, 128; d. 2303 (cen-
tral council on kurort administration, January 1976), l. 73; d. 1088, ll. 48, 59. Psychotherapy
was also used to treat resters with bad habits, such as excessive drinking. Trud , 29 August