58 Chapter 2
calmed the nerves. Healthy hygienic habits could also carry over throughout
the year, making tourism an entirely appropriate school of healthy living.^11
Creating knowledge, building the state, and improving one’s physical
health contributed to the good of the collective. In addition, activists explic-
itly extolled the virtues of proletarian tourism in constructing a Soviet self:
the tourist experience promoted individual initiative, self-confi dence, and
self-discipline. One of its key principles, samodeiatel'nost' —a term liter-
ally defi ned as self-activism—connoted autonomy and independence.^12 En-
countering the unknown, to “see what has never been seen before,” taught
the tourist self-reliance: “you overcome obstacles, and sometimes danger—
which strengthens the body and steels the will.” Planning one’s own itiner-
ary allowed the tourist to be an actor, a skilled traveler, not a passive partici-
pant on well-trodden routes. He or she would learn to plan and to develop
the resources and resiliency to adapt to changing circumstances. “Self-orga-
nization and self-activism are the basis of tourism,” instructed the Komsomol
in 1927.^13
Studies of Soviet subjectivity emphasize the quality of a distinctly Soviet
self oriented toward and subordinated to the collective.^14 In similar fashion,
Soviet tourism activists promoted the ways in which travel developed feel-
ings of comradeship and taught the techniques of mutual aid. Soviet tourism
developed the capacity for teamwork. “You cannot travel without mutual
support, especially where the route is most diffi cult and dangerous.” Shar-
ing the work, dangers, and awe in the beauty of nature produced a common
experience that cemented collective loyalties. Activists described in meticu-
lous detail the mechanism for forming a tourist group and the division of
labor within this collective. But these prescriptions did not necessarily imply
that the individual was to be subsumed in the collective. Tourists should
form groups that were small, compatible, and selective, based on personal
affi nities: members should share common skill levels, work experience, and
social position. Over and over, handbooks stressed small, compatible, and es-
sentially closed and private teams.^15 Some scholars ascribe to the Soviet sys-- Fizkul'tura i sport , 5 May 1928, 4; Bergman, Otdykh letom , 7, 42, 9–10, 21–22; Berg-
man, Pervaia kniga, 11; Barkhash, Sputnik turista , 8, 29–43; V. Antonov-Saratovskii, “Tur-
izm i fi zkul'tura,” NSNM , no. 5 (1930): 1. - The term also is used to denote amateur artistic activities, as in “evenings of amateur
creativity,” which were a staple of cultural activity in kurorts, rest homes, and also on the
tourist trail. - “See what has never been seen,” KP , 16 December 1926; 15 June 1927; Bergman,
Otdykh letom , 56–57; Bergman, Pervaia kniga , 16–17; “Self-organization and self-activism,”
RGASPI, f. M-1, op. 4, d. 29, l. 114. - Kharkhordin, Collective and the Individual ; David L. Hoffmann, Stalinist Values:
The Cultural Norms of Soviet Modernity, 1917–1941 (Ithaca, NY, 2003); Igal Halfi n, Terror
in My Soul: Communist Autobiographies on Trial (Cambridge, MA, 2003); Jochen Hellbeck,
Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Stalin (Cambridge, MA, 2006). - KP , 16 December 1926 (quote); 15 June 1927; Bergman, Pervaia kniga , 34.