From Treatment to Vacation 205show up in Sochi with a child in tow risked incurring the wrath of local (and
low-paid) medical people resentful of the “big ruble” that permitted such a
luxury.^99 The proper socialist vacation would be rational and utilitarian, pro-
viding all members of the collective—young, old, married, or single—with
the vacation conditions appropriate to their medical and production needs.
By the 1950s and 1960s, attitudes about family, love, and the emotional
needs of Soviet citizens had begun to change. The increasing importance of
consumption in defi ning the Soviet good life emboldened citizens to dissent
from the institutional strictures on the family vacation. “Life has become
better, life has become more fun,” said the trade union secretary Shevchen-
ko in 1961 (appropriating the Stalinist slogan of the 1930s). “Laboring
people have plenty of money and they can buy a voucher with their own
savings.” The 1966 opinion poll conducted by Boris Grushin and reported
in Komsomol'skaia pravda indicated that 45 percent of respondents wished
to vacation with their families. The trade union newspaper poll in the same
year, drawing on a different sample of the population (older, more proletari-
an), revealed that two-thirds of respondents preferred this kind of vacation.^100
Still, the Soviet regime responded reluctantly to this demand.
I argue that by the 1970s, the logistical and physical constraints of the
vacation system itself, not ideology or attitudes, posed the biggest obstacle
to a Soviet family vacation. Yet these constraints derived from the history of
a medicalized and work-based approach to the public health needs of Soviet
citizens. Vacation vouchers remained closely tied to one’s work status. They
were issued to individuals by their place of work, and it was very diffi cult
for a married couple to arrange to receive two identical vouchers unless they
worked at the same enterprise. At an international conference of health resort
offi cials in 1961, Soviet offi cials sought guidance from their fraternal part-
ners. One delegate asked the Mongolian representative how his agency man-
aged to organize family vacations: “Let’s say we have a husband who works
in one enterprise, a wife in another, or not at all. How do you deal with this?”
The Mongolian replied simply that the husband and wife could rearrange
their vacation time: “We do this so that spouses won’t need to pine for each
other.”^101 In many cases, aspiring family vacationers with a single vouch-
er arrived at their destination en famille , hoping to negotiate places on the
spot. “We have an unpleasant picture, especially in summer,” reported a rest
home director in 1955. “Papa or mama arrives with children and we won’t
take them. They raise a fuss, there are tears, pleading, they’ve spent money
already for the trip, they say that the factory committee chairman said, ‘Just go,
- GAGS, f. R-24, op. 1, d. 1044 (newspaper clippings, 1960), l. 46 (letter to Krasnoe
znamia , 21 August 1960). - GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 238, l. 173; Grushin, Chetyre zhizni , 158; Trud , 21 June 1967.
- GAGS, f. R-24, op. 1, d. 845 (newspaper clippings, 1958), l. 50; GARF, f. 9493, op.
8, d. 238, ll. 154–59.