226 Chapter 6
In addition to creating their own local itineraries, oblast tourism agencies
also sponsored their own long-distance trips. The Moscow TEU led the way,
with its launch in 1960 of special tourist train journeys to the Caucasus and
the Black Sea. By the mid-1960s, many other local councils sponsored their
own tourist trains, and they began to enter the river cruise market in a big
way as well. By 1967 a tourist could obtain from any of ten oblast councils a
putevka for a twenty-day Volga cruise from Moscow to Astrakhan and back.
The Sochi tourism council began to offer its own Black Sea cruises from
1964; by 1969 it operated its own international cruises, sailing from Sochi
to Romania and Bulgaria. It sold putevki to tourists not only from the local
Krasnodar region but from all over the Soviet Union.^50 It was no accident that
Moscow and Sochi were able to pioneer these local initiatives, for they had
accumulated surplus resources as two of the most desirable destinations on
the tourist map.
Local initiative also led to local confl icts as each vendor of tourism itiner-
aries competed directly or indirectly with the others. The director of the So-
chi tourist base refused to provide any services for tourists on Moscow’s 1960
train. The small and underfunded Vladimir tourism council tried in vain
to engage Moscow in a joint tourist venture to promote its ancient towns,
which were becoming especially popular among the Moscow intelligentsia
at the start of the 1960s. Siberian tourism councils resented the efforts of
Moscow-based offi cials to create their own routes on Siberian territory. The
larger councils, alleged critics, were also in a position to negotiate better rates
when renting trains and steamships from the various transport ministries.^51
Fares for the ten different Moscow-Astrakhan cruises in 1967 varied from 160
to 170 rubles in fi rst class and from 86 rubles to 100 in fourth class, but the
most expensive fi rst-class ticket, at 170 rubles, was in fact sold by Moscow,
a subtle sign of market-based pricing. Moscow generated the largest demand
for tourist travel, and its tourists could afford to pay a premium for their
journeys.^52Trains and Boats and Planes: Expanding the Geography of Tourism
The expansion of recreational and leisure mobility might well be con-
sidered one of the signal achievements of the post-Stalin Soviet state. Both
health vacations and tourism brought positive benefi ts to their consumers in
addition to providing pleasurable respites from the everyday world of work.- TsAGM, f. 28, op. 1, d. 9 (report on itinerary 187, 1960); Turistskie marshruty na 1967
god , comp. P. Rakhmanov (Moscow, 1967); GAGS, f. 261, op. 1, d. 3 (Sochi excursion base
report, 1964), ll. 1–2; d. 89 (comment books for sailings, 1969–70). - TsAGM, f. 28, op. 1, d. 9, l. 3; GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 381, l. 75; d. 750, l. 48; d. 632,
ll. 177–180; d. 1272, l. 112. - Turistskie marshruty na 1967 god.