Mending the Human Motor 33of drinking mare’s milk. The share of technical personnel was highest in
Kislovodsk (27 percent) and Sochi (26 percent). Employees were also over-
represented in Kislovodsk, Sochi, and the Crimean southern shore. They con-
stituted an even larger share of patients renting accommodations in pansions
in Crimea: 27.2 percent of such patients were employees, 25.2 percent work-
ers. If sanatoria were repair shops for workers, the less medically intensive
pansion vacation appealed more to those seeking pleasure, not a cure. Not
surprisingly, the percentage of patients belonging to the Communist Party
followed the trend of privilege: Party members constituted the largest share
of patients in Kislovodsk (43.3 percent) and Sochi (42.9 percent). Among the
Mineral Waters spa towns, Piatigorsk had the largest contingent of workers
(40.8 percent) and the smallest group of Communists (36.3 percent).^58
The “best resorts” in 1933 drew the most Party members, the most white-
collar employees and engineers, the fewest workers, and the fewest children.
Table 1.2 Percentage of patients at all-union kurorts, 1933, by social composition
Social group
Sanatorium
patients (%)Pansion
patients (%)Production workers 33.8 23.9
Nonproduction workers 6.3 5.3
Workers in cooperatives 0.6 1
Workers now invalids 1 0.8
Other workers 0.7
Share of workers who are shock workers 55.8 31.7
Engineering personnel 17.4 9.6
Teachers 1.9 1.4
Scientists 0.9 0.9
Accountants 1.6 1.9
Peasants 2.6 1.4
Of these, members of collective farms 93.2 88.7
University students from worker background 4.6 5.8
Medical personnel 0.7 0.5
Others on a par with workers 10.7 10
White-collar employees 11.4 22.4
Patients’ spouses 3.1 8.6
Other nonworkers 0.3 1.2
Children under 16 2.0 5.2
Children 16–18 0.3 0.3
Party members as percentage of all patients 36.8 31.6
Source: GARF, f. A-8042, op. 1, d. 10.
- Piatigorsk’s status seemed to be tarnished by its reputation as the place for the repair
of a syphilitic body: “The old simple formula exists to this day: Piatigorsk is syphilis, syphi-
lis is Piatigorsk.” GARF, f. 9493, op. 1, d. 8, l. 107.