Post-proletarian Tourism 233Train tourists left positive comments, just as did most visitors to sanatoria
and rest homes. We not only rested and strengthened our muscles, noted one
group, but we learned about the culture and genius of those peoples with
whom we visited, talented Dagestanis, Georgians, Adzharians, and Abkha-
zians. The trip was very interesting, wrote another: it expanded our horizons
and gave vivid impressions of the cities and the resorts of the Caucasus. But
they did not shy from suggesting improvements and changes to the regime.
Tourists requested more amenities such as a radio for announcements, show-
ers, hooks for clothing, transformers for shavers, laundry and repair facilities,
and “an iron—the tourist’s dream.”^67 The self-confi dence gained from travel
permitted them to impart their own ideas about what constituted a proper
tourist experience.
Reviewing reports of the fi rst year of Moscow’s tourist trains, the central
tourist authority pronounced these initial trips a success, and this form of
tourism quickly expanded. From its modest beginning in 1960, package train
travel expanded to 138 trains in 1963 and 460 trains in 1966, carrying 110,000
passengers.^68 All the train trips were organized by local tourism councils, who
arranged with the transportation ministry for the train services and with local
tourism organizations for excursion and other services at their stops along
the way. Train travel was not inexpensive, but the price of a ticket included
transportation from home and eliminated the inconvenience of booking re-
turn tickets. (Other package tours, including cruises, did not include the cost
of transportation to the tour’s starting point.) A putevka for a twenty-day train
trip from Leningrad to Central Asia and back in 1968 cost 175 rubles, com-
pared with 160 rubles for a fi rst-class cabin on a twenty-day river cruise from
Leningrad along the Volga. For most tourists, the trains provided an alternate
way to travel to the sea and mountains, still the favored tourist destinations.
As the number of trains expanded from 2,700 in 1969 to 6,200 in 1974, the
majority of them headed south: Penza-Caucasus-Penza, Vladivostok-Caucasus-
Vladivostok, Tashkent-Caucasus-Tashkent, and so forth.^69
Cruises
River and ocean cruises appealed to a different segment of the tourist pub-
lic, those who preferred a more sedentary vacation experience but who also
wished to expand their geographic and cultural horizons. In addition to the
unforgettable cities and sites linked to Lenin’s biography along Mother Volga,
“the vistas and landscapes of the beautiful Volga, constantly changing be-
fore our eyes, developed my aesthetic appreciation of nature, and brought
much joy to my soul,” wrote a passenger on a 1956 sailing. The organiza-
tion of river cruises had improved slowly but signifi cantly from the hapless
journeys of the 1930s. Gradually, specially built passenger boats entered the
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 386, ll. 8, 10, 53, 63.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 750, l. 40; d. 1297, l. 20.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 1910, l. 21; Turistskie marshruty na 1968 god , 126–153.