From Treatment to Vacation 191although everyone recognized that people or enterprises that did not pay
for their own putevki were more likely to end up not using them, wasting
resources.^61 The growing demand by Soviet citizens for access to vacation
spots encouraged offi cials to think about the extra revenue they could gener-
ate by selling more putevki for cash. And Soviet people had cash. One West-
ern economist estimates that that between 1975 and 1985 savings grew 9.3
percent, while consumption grew by only 4.6 percent. Savings grew because
there was so little to buy. One proposal in 1961 advocated setting aside nine
sanatoria and eight rest homes for the sale of putevki at full cost; another
suggested reserving up to 25 percent of putevki for cash sales. The money
received in exchange could then be invested directly in the expansion of
kurort facilities.^62
As with proposals for off-peak pricing differentials, such quasi-capitalist
propositions did not sit well with many trade union offi cials, and they man-
aged to quietly shelve plans to convert trade union health facilities into com-
mercial enterprises. The return to a 1920s system of a mixed public-private
economy found supporters within the economic establishment, but it gener-
ated enemies among the managers and trade union apparatus.^63 Instead of
rationing the scarce vacation facilities by price, offi cials continued to dis-
tribute them in the socialist manner, which was felt to be more equitable.
Soviet consumers agreed: when asked whether the state or consumers should
fi nance the expansion of the kurort network, a 1966 poll revealed that 30
percent of respondents thought consumers should pay, even if this meant
raising the prices of putevki, but 45 percent of respondents insisted the state
should provide all funds for vacation development.^64 In the meantime, since
the state was not living up to its responsibility, those with the ability to pay
for their own vacations turned increasingly to opportunities outside the trade
union system, fueling the rise of “unorganized” or “wild” vacationing, to
which I will return.
Along with market-like reforms came new methods of market research so
that Soviet planners could better determine the tastes and demands of the
growing consumer public. In 1966 the planning institute in charge of kurort
construction commissioned a poll by the public opinion group operated by
Komsomol'skaia pravda , the only “commercial” poll ever undertaken by that
group. The results suggested that Soviet citizens wanted more opportunities
to vacation with their families and that most of them preferred a traveling
vacation to spending the entire time in one place. At the same time, Trud
sponsored its own survey on popular preferences for vacations. Both polls
relied on the voluntary responses of readers. In contrast to 72 percent of the
- Azar, Ekonomika , 144; GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 1088, l. 34.
- Ed A. Hewett, Reforming the Soviet Economy: Equality versus Effi ciency (Washing-
ton, DC, 1988), 88; GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 4, l. 14; d. 227, l. 226. - GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 1669, l. 154; see Lewin, Political Undercurrents.
- B. A. Grushin, Chetyre zhizni Rossii v zerkale oprosov obshchestvennogo mneniia.
Epokha Brezhneva , pt. 1 (Moscow, 2003), 159.