36 Chapter 1
Health offi cials devoted considerable effort to monitoring the class com-
position of their patients, even if this effort revealed widespread abuse of
the putevka system. They were much less interested in the gender and age
composition of those who received treatment. Ethnic representation in the
health resort system received barely a mention.^67 Offi cials acknowledged that
women found it diffi cult to accept putevki to rest homes because they had
no place to leave their children; this problem led to suggestions that special
homes be organized for mothers and children together. Health offi cials in
1935 acknowledged that it was the “political obligation” of trade unions to
increase the percentage of women going to health resorts, and the director of
the Caucasian Mineral Waters group reported progress on this front: the share
of women had risen from 17.4 percent in 1934 to 20.4 percent in 1935 (com-
pared with their 39.5 percent share of the labor force in 1937). The share of
women was highest in Kislovodsk: 25 percent in 1935, the largest of the four
Caucasus spa towns and by other indicators the most prestigious.^68 “Normal”
holiday life required a decent ratio between men and women.
The role of families in state-sponsored health travel posed a special conun-
drum. If the purpose of a rest home or health spa vacation was to heal or repair
the individual laborer’s body, then the putevka should be awarded only to
those individuals. Removing an ailing worker from the stresses of family life
might even help the healing process. The superiority of the socialist system
of vacation, insisted the 1936 guide to health resorts, lay in the scientifi c pro-
cess of patient selection: treatment was given to those whose bodies needed it
most, not to those who had the means to pay for their leisure. Family members
might well interfere with this process. Rest homes for mothers and children
turned out to be counterproductive: vacationing with their children, mothers
did not rest. “Experience shows that small children completely ruin the moth-
er’s entire course of treatment. A sick mother has the right to rest away from
her children.” The sanatorium’s medical value of quiet, calm, and change
of situation dictated that unless the patient was so weak as to need round-
the-clock assistance, family members should stay home. Combining the medi-
cally needy with those who came only for relaxation, argued the director of
the Kislovodsk resort in 1935, only created chaos and dissatisfaction.^69
“Family” often meant spouse: the Soviet resort did not even cater to mar-
ried couples. As for the larger nuclear family, Soviet sanatoria were not espe-
cially suitable for children and lacked the appropriate facilities. For seriously
ill children, special sanatoria provided age-specifi c treatment. For others,
the pioneer camp offered a healthful summer vacation, freeing parents from
the need to supervise their children during the summer. The consumer- An exception is a brief acknowledgment of the problem of serving national minori-
ties in the health care system by the head of the social insurance fund, N. M. Petrov, “Rol'
sotsstrakha v organizatsii razvitii rabochego otdykha,” in Zdravookhranenie i rabochii , 87. - GARF, f. 5528, op. 4, d. 132, ll. 88, 239; f. 9493, op. 1, d. 24, ll. 6–7, 117.
- Kurorty SSSR (1923), 52; Kurorty SSSR (1936), 21; Rykova, “Opyt organizatsii Domov
Otdykha,” Doma otdykha 1920–1923 , 20 (quote); GARF, f. 9493, op. 1, d. 8, l. 37.