Mending the Human Motor 47As a result, resort directors reported everywhere that their cultural activities
lacked imagination and interest.^89
In the big kurort centers, however, the resort administrations received a
share of the cost of a putevka in order to organize professional entertain-
ment for the patients. This in turn reinforced their prestige and appeal.
Agreements with the state concert organization brought “the best orchestras
in the country” to Kislovodsk and Sochi. Resorts also hired musicians for
their own local orchestras during the season, and guest artists made regular
visits to the leading spas (trading two or three concerts for a four- or fi ve-
week cure). Patients from Moscow demanded “the best soloists,” those from
Leningrad “the best singers.” The leading theater companies from Moscow
and Leningrad made regular visits to the south to entertain vacationers, and
resorts in the southern shore of Crimea organized their own theater troupe.
Film enjoyed great popularity, accounting for one-third of the programming
at Mineral Waters in 1935 (see table 1.3 below), but it also generated dis-
satisfaction. Sound projectors were in short supply, so most resorts could
show only old silent fi lms: only Piatigorsk, Yalta, and Sochi had installed
sound systems by 1935. Spa patients demanded fi rst-run fi lms, not dam-
aged and worn-out fi lms that had been shown across the whole country
before arriving in the south.^90 Increasingly, resort entertainment took on a
commercial fl avor, as kurort administrations charged admission fees to at-
tend fi lm showings and concerts in order to fi nance the entertainment their
patients preferred.
Rest home vacations in the 1930s offered simpler pleasures. Most offered
billiards and game tables for chess and checkers players; the athletically in-
clined could play volleyball and gorodki (a Russian version of skittles), while
others looked on. Evening entertainments included fi lms, concerts, and
the ubiquitous amateur shows. Rest homes now began to stockpile musical
Table 1.3 Cultural activities in Caucasian Mineral Waters spas for 1935
Type of program Number of events Percentage of total
Cinema 1,157 36.3
Excursions 598 18.8
Concerts 577 18.1
Lectures 472 14.8
Amateur evenings 382 12
Total 3,186 100
Source: GARF, f. 9493, op. 1, d. 24, l. 135.- GARF, f. 5527, op. 4, d. 131, ll. 33, 44–45, 69; f. 9493, op. 1, d. 2, l. 73; f. A-483, op.
2, d. 41, ll. 215, 230; f. 9493, op. 1, d. 8, l. 28; op. 3, d. 1495, l. 62; op. 1, d. 27 (conference on
kurort cultural services, with the editors of Trud , April 1935), l. 8; op. 3, d. 1495, ll. 13, 48. - GARF, f. 9493, op. 1, d. 27, ll. 28, 5, 14; f. A-483, op. 2, d. 41, l. 219.