Mending the Human Motor 39
consequence of the inability of spouses and families to travel together? Offi -
cials argued in 1932 that workers wanted to rest together with their families;
they even refused rest home putevki because “they don’t want to spend their
vacation time away from their families.” The head of the social insurance
fund proposed that a certain percentage of spaces in rest homes be reserved
for families. Managers at Moscow’s Elektrozavod realized that providing
vacation putevki for workers as well as their families helped to motivate
workers and strengthen their loyalty. “The question of the need to allocate
family-discounted putevki to the best workers was often raised, and espe-
cially actively from the start of the 1930s in connection to sending the best
shock workers to Black Sea resorts, where they dreamed of going together
with their families.” In 1935 the plant decided to devote a separate wing of
its rest home for the use of families, and by the second half of the 1930s,
family vacations were widespread at Elektrozavod. Also in 1935, offi cials at
Caucasus Mineral Waters noted the new phenomenon of patients arriving
with their entire families and demanding separate rooms (instead of sharing
with strangers of the same sex).^73 Despite such evidence of popular demand
for the opportunity to spend vacation time together as a family, the health
resort and rest home system made only minimal adaptations. The idea of
rest as individual recuperation remained dominant, trumping the ideal of a
family vacation.
The Spa Regime
Regardless of the growing tension between carefree fun and medical pur-
pose in the 1930s Soviet spa vacation, the spa regime emphasized the strictly
utilitarian side of these vacations. Once the patient-vacationer had arrived
at the health resort or rest home, the science of medicine governed the daily
routine. The repair of the human motor required a sophisticated and struc-
tured medical workshop in order to produce the optimal results.
A new arrival submitted immediately to a preliminary medical exami-
nation and a bath. At a health spa, the patient received special underwear
and toiletries; personal underwear would be disinfected and returned to the
patient at the end of the stay. After a series of more thorough medical ex-
aminations, the patient would be issued a medical booklet outlining all the
prescribed procedures to be followed: each patient received the individual-
ized treatment bested suited to his or her medical condition. The language of
medicine pervaded the culture of the vacation. Even if the “healing powers
of nature are the strongest medicine” (sun, fresh air, water), their incorrect
utilization could cause serious harm. “This is why the patient must above all
- “They don’t want to spend,” GARF, f. 5528, op. 4, d. 132, l. 120; d. 131, l. 40; Petrov,
“Rol' sotsstrakha v organizatsii razvitii rabochego otdykha,” in Zdravookhranenie i rabochii ,
85; “The question of the need,” Zhuravlev and Mukhin, “Krepost' sotsializma,” 195–196;
GARF, 9493, op. 1, d. 24, l. 14.
