230 Chapter 6
and itineraries in Belorussia and Moldavia in the west; Kirgizia, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in Central Asia; and Sakhalin Island and the
Far East on the Pacifi c. The 1968 edition of the package tour guide now listed
eleven tours to Siberia and the Urals and twelve to Central Asia, includ-
ing six different itineraries that visited the capital cities of the Central Asia
republics. With the 1969 decision to invest state funds in the expansion of
tourism, the tourism council announced plans to build tourist hotels in Tash-
kent in Central Asia, Bratsk in Siberia, and Tol'iatti, the new automobile city
on the Volga River. By 1979, the capacity of tourist institutions in the Urals
region and beyond represented 19 percent of the country’s total.^61 Following
the pattern set in the 1930s by On Land and On Sea , these more exotic desti-
nations received lavish publicity in Turist , whereas very little coverage was
devoted to the traditional Black Sea destinations.^62Tourist Trains
The introduction of reserved trains for package tours arose from the com-
bination of increasing consumer demand and greater autonomy allowed to
local tourism councils. Because Moscow had the country’s largest population
and a high concentration of intelligentsia with long summer vacations, its
TEU had been the most active local promoter of tourist routes and packages.
In 1960 Moscow sponsored the fi rst all-rail package tour, itinerary number
187, a twenty-day trip from Moscow through the Caucasus and back, send-
ing about 1,600 passengers on four trips that summer. Most of the travelers
came from Moscow and its region, but the trains also included 300 foreign
tourists from socialist and nonaligned countries, and they came to be known
as “Friendship” trains. In their comments, tourists praised the new concept:
this was a convenient way to visit fi ve republics and their capital cities, to
walk on mountain trails, to swim in two seas, and to meet representatives
from so many Soviet nationalities. (Relations between Soviet and foreign
tourists were not always so cordial, and many Soviet tourists resented the
preferential treatment given the guests.)^63
The tourist programs on these trains offered a full menu of sightseeing and
recreation. In the major cities along the way (if all went well), travelers were
met by guides who conducted local bus excursions. In Kiev a group saw the
major attractions such as the art museum and the St. Sofi a Cathedral and
then by turns took boat rides along the Dnepr River. In picturesque medieval- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 447 (central tourism council plenum, September 1962), ll. 27,
31; d. 1272, l. 15; Turistskie marshruty na 1968 god , 20–21; V. S. Preobrazhensky and V. M.
Krivosheyev, eds., Recreational Geography of the USSR (Moscow, 1982), 50–51. - Gorsuch has analyzed the representation of Estonia as a “western” tourist destination
both exotically foreign but also familiarly Soviet, a “space of safely Sovietized western dif-
ference.” All This Is Your World , 55. Tourism publications offer a rich source base for further
examination of the representation of the USSR’s “exotic” and “eastern” yet socialist destina-
tions, but space does not permit that exploration here. - TsAGM, f. 28, op. 1, d. 10 (tourist train reports, 1960), l. 3.