214 Chapter 6
As discussed in the previous chapter, the 1960s saw a consumer revolu-
tion in the USSR, despite the notable defi cits in food supply that provoked
massive disorders in the last years under Khrushchev. Consumer spending
had begun to grow in the 1950s, according to foreign economic estimates,
and overall consumption grew at a rate of 5.2 percent a year between 1964
and 1973.^12 Notwithstanding the bureaucratic caution of tourism offi cials
themselves, tourism shared in this consumer expansion, both foreign and
domestic. As table 6.1 demonstrates, the number of tourists served by tourist
bases and hotels grew tenfold during the 1960s in total capacity, and tour-
ism’s share of all vacationers more than tripled (excluding, of course, the
untold numbers of unorganized tourists and vacationers). Scientifi c survey
research began to devote serious attention to estimating the demand for tour-
ism and vacations in order to make optimal use of funds for expansion. With
the 1968 law that shortened the standard workweek to fi ve days and extended
the annual paid vacation from twelve to fi fteen working days, the demand
for both long-distance and weekend travel was expected to soar.^13 The Cen-
tral Trade Union Council recognized these new opportunities in May 1969
with its most ambitious plan yet, endorsed by the Central Committee of the
Communist Party and the USSR Council of Ministers. A joint decree called
for massive new infusions of state funds for the expansion and improvement
of tourist bases and hotels, it instructed union republics to allocate land for
construction, and it commanded ministries of transportation and construc-
tion to cooperate with the councils of tourism to fully implement the law.^14
For the fi rst time, tourism achieved the status of a full-fl edged state activity,
but as befi tting the ambitions of a society on the path to communism, the
new model for tourism featured shared partnership among state, party, and
public organizations. This sometimes unwieldy coalition produced the most
dramatic period in the growth of Soviet tourism. By 1975, vacationers under
the auspices of the tourism councils represented more than half of all regis-
tered leisure travelers.The Best Tourism Is Independent Tourism
In the 1960s, independent touring became a “romance,” and the voices of
the independent tourist dominated the tourism press in the 1960s and 1970s,
particularly with the launch in 1966 of a dedicated magazine, Turist. The- Vladimir A. Kozlov, Mass Uprisings in the USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-
Stalin Years , trans. and ed. Elaine McClarnand MacKinnon (Armonk, NY, 2002); Samuel
H. Baron, Bloody Saturday in the Soviet Union: Novocherkassk, 1962 (Stanford, CA, 2001);
Hanson, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy , 65, 99, 114–115. - Azar, Otdykh , 6–8.
- Trud , 26 June 1969, contains the text of the decree. Implementation of the decree
received extensive and frank discussion at a plenum of the central council on tourism on 16
July 1969: GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d.1272 (central tourism council plenum, July 1969). Turist ,
no. 6 (1970): 11.