50 Chapter 1
showers.^92 But the overwhelming impression these fi lms conveyed was a
sense of happiness, abundance, and fun, a Soviet health vacation that was no
longer solely devoted to mending the human motor.
Belying the images of plenty conveyed in the fi lms, concerned health
offi cials admitted to the fact of shrinking capacities in 1938. Financial dif-
fi culties took their toll, resulting particularly in the inability to recruit and to
retain skilled medical staffs. One veteran offi cial noted the critical shortages
of basic items such as bed linen as well as the drying up of construction funds.
But others pointed to incorrect planning decisions and misplaced priorities
favoring luxury over medicine. In line with the third fi ve-year plan’s empha-
sis on improved living and cultural conditions, the emphasis at the central
health resorts seemed to be on “fewer but better.” Bed linens were sacrifi ced
in order to purchase sculpture, paintings, and fancy carpets. Patients such as
those from Hammer and Sickle noted and appreciated the “cozy rooms with
nice furniture,” excellent food, and entertainment every evening, but it was
hard to argue that such amenities did more to improve the patients’ overall
health than an adequate supply of physicians and medical staff.^93
In fact, there was much evidence that the purposeful goal of a ratio-
nal Soviet health spa vacation had become overshadowed by a prefer-
ence for comfort, fun, and amusement. By the end of the 1930s the kurort
regime had vanished: patients came and went from the dining room as they
pleased and took second helpings if they felt like it, even if not medically
necessary. Offi cials from the health commissariat protested this loss of
medical purpose. “The very profi le of the health spas has changed into an
institution for having fun, not for medicine. Resort towns now have beer
bars and restaurants,” lamented a health commissariat offi cial. The head
medical doctor now ceded authority to the sanatorium’s lay director. In
proprietary sanatoria that were outside the jurisdiction of the trade union
medical authorities, standards disappeared entirely. Treatment had become
optional and the evening entertainment more dominant, attracting not only
patients but the civilian population from all over, dancing with the medi-
cine left out.^94
The transformation of the Soviet sanatorium from an institution of rest
and recuperation to a holiday resort appeared to be well under way by the
second half of the 1930s, long before the famous shift toward the consumer- Podarok Rodiny , 1935 sound fi lm, RGAKFD, no. 3889; Sanatorii i doma otdykha ,
silent fi lm with French subtitles, 1938, RGAKFD, no. 3764; Pravo na otdykh , 1939
sound fi lm in English, RGAKFD, no. 3875; Zdorov'e naroda , 1940 silent fi lm, RGAKFD,
no. 4074. - GARF, f. 9228, op. 1, d. 24, ll. 7, 10, 14, 36–37, 51, 72; f. A-483, op. 2, d. 41, ll. 107,
174, 215; “Bystro i reshitel'no likvidirovat' posledstviia vreditel'stva na kurortakh,” Voprosy
kurortologii , nos. 1–2 (1938): 3–7; “Voprosy tret'ego piatiletnogo plana. K voprosu o rekon-
struktsii kurortov SSSR v tret'im piatiletke,” Voprosy kurortologii , no. 4 (1937): 84; GARF, f.
9493, op. 3, d. 1478, ll. 15, 58; Martenovka , 28 June 1938; 4 July 1938. - GARF, f. A-483, op. 2, d. 41, ll. 227–229, 231; f. 9228, op. 1, d. 24, ll. 37 (quote), 39,
42; f. 9493, op. 3, d. 1495, l. 48.