248 Chapter 6
Not all Soviet tourists found the encounter with even a fraternal socialist
other to be as horizon-expanding and enlightening as tourism activists and
theorists might have hoped. For some, the unfamiliar cultures and surround-
ings threw up a barrier that nullifi ed any gain of pleasure from the encounter.
As one group leader commented on a rest stay at a Bulgarian Black Sea resort,
“In general, I would like to note that our tourists abroad had to spend their va-
cation time not in the way they are accustomed and according to the traditions
and customs we have learned and that we don’t want to give up even when
in a foreign country, that is, in a collective, with our music, our art, our games
and dances.” Instead they had to spend their evenings in “alien and not always
pleasant” restaurants and bars.^110 The confrontation with rock and roll pro-
duced particular dissonance and even revulsion. Tourists in Poland refused to
learn the twist from local women and taught their hosts Ukrainian folk dances
instead. A demonstration of the latest twist by Algerian tourists in Bulgaria
caused similar offense: “The movements and gestures suggested something
sexual,” and the Soviets repaid the favor by performing another folk dance.
“We let them know that we don’t accept the bad parts of Western culture.”^111
More than anything else, Soviet tourists found foreign food customs the
most alienating aspect of their encounters abroad. The same groups that read-
ily absorbed the sights and attractions of socialist Poland or Germany could
not extend the same openness to new experiences at their dining tables. So-
viet tourists expected the same types of meals that at home “corresponded to
medical and health needs”: large and fi lling breakfasts and dinners and light
suppers. Although many reports judged the food to be fi ne, some tourists had
a harder time adjusting not only to meal proportions but to various nation-
al cuisines. German food in particular produced many negative comments:
sandwiches and sausages for breakfast and supper were “not suitable” for
Soviet tourists. The Hungarians used too many peppers, and the Czechoslo-
vak menus of stewed meat and boiled potatoes were boring. There should be
more bread, many wrote, and it would have been nice to have the occasional
“pleasant surprise” of Russian cabbage soup or Ukrainian beet borshch.^112
Soviet tourists were used to complaining about the food in their domestic ac-
commodations, but as we have seen, they were also very conservative in their
willingness to try new things even at home. The security of familiar food was
even more important for travelers abroad.- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 866 (group leader reports, 1965), l. 43.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 407, l. 125; d. 597, ll. 5–6; quote from d. 866, l. 156. A Ger-
man woman found Soviet tourists like these “boring,” and predicted that they too would
eventually adopt contemporary dances that were now forbidden inside the USSR. Ibid., d.
487, l. 24. - GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, 491, l. 106 (Bulgaria), d. 699, l. 65 (Hungary); d. 598, ll. 25 (Ro-
mania), 79; d. 865, ll. 4, 13 (Czechoslovakia); d. 1104, l. 27 (German Democratic Republic);
d. 487, l. 25; d. 592 (group leader reports, 1963), l. 4; d. 701, l. 123; d. 878, ll. 35, 51, 69, 75,
102, 111, 146, 147; d. 468, l. 80; d. 1315 (group leader reports, 1969), l. 44; d. 701, l. 123; d.
1342 (group leader reports, 1969), l. 32, d. 597, l. 55.