Proletarian Tourism 61fl ora, and mountain villages. Much of this route (“the most beautiful highway
in the world,” as recounted in Il'f and Petrov’s The Twelve Chairs ) could be
traversed by horse-drawn or motorized buses, stopping along the way at Sov-
tur bases. A more rugged itinerary (number 19) took hardy tourists along the
Sukhumi Military Highway through vast unpopulated stretches of the Caucasus
range. Setting out from Kislovodsk, tourists would travel by bus to the mountain
resort of Teberda. From there they crossed the Caucasus on foot, spending their
nights in tents, surrounded only by “wild nature, glaciers, peaks, and mountain
lakes,” fi nishing the journey at sea level at the Sovtur base near Sukhumi.^21 This
twenty-one-day group tour not only exposed tourists to the variety of the Soviet
national space but toughened them and taught them how to cope in unfamiliar
conditions. For 1930, Sovtur developed a series of industrial excursions tailored
for groups from particular industries: cotton workers or metallurgists would visit
similar plants and expand their knowledge of production processes. All Soviet
tourists would learn about Soviet economic achievements by visiting the great
construction sites of the fi ve-year plan. Sovtur emphasized the benefi ts of collec-
tive touring, promising to assign individual tourists to appropriate and compat-
ible groups. For Sovtur as well as the Society for Proletarian Tourism, participa-
tion in group excursions (whose members, divided by sex, would share large
sleeping rooms at tourist bases) would help to develop habits of comradeship
and solidarity.^22 Soviet tourism also needed to be accessible to growing numbers
of aspiring travelers, so Sovtur priced its trips according to the income of the
traveler, and like its rival proletarian tourism society, arranged with the Com-
missariat of Transportation to offer half-price train tickets on its packaged excur-
sions. In this way, the company sought to democratize Soviet tourism, to appeal
to travelers from all social strata, from poor peasants (they claimed) to teachers
(Narkompros’s original clientele), engineers, and government offi cials. Its ethos
differed from that of the Komsomol-inspired Society for Proletarian Tourism
only in the absence of good deeds as part of its mission, a point that the proletar-
ian tourists would seize upon and label “sovturism”—apoliticalness.
At the same time, Sovtur recognized its responsibility to maintain a bal-
anced budget. Tourists wanted decent accommodations, good healthy food,
medical help, transportation, guides, and guidebooks. All of this cost money,
which Sovtur proposed to raise by charging higher prices for tourists able to
pay, renting out off-season spaces in its tourist bases for use as rest homes,
securing a monopoly on tourist excursions in Crimea, selling postcards, and
expanding its bases in Moscow and Leningrad to serve as profi t centers.^23
- Sovetskii Turist, Marshruty ekskursii na leto 1929 goda (Moscow, 1929), 61–63; Il'ia
Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, Twelve Chairs , trans. John H.C. Richardson (Evanston, IL, 1997), 364. - Egorov, “Zadachi ‘Sovetskogo turista,’ ” 4–5; Marshruty proizvodstvennykh ekskursii
po SSSR na 1930 god. Spravochnik (Moscow, 1930); Sovetskii Turist, Marshruty ekskursii po
SSSR na leto 1930 goda. Spravochnik (Moscow, 1930), 191. - Egorov, “Zadachi ‘Sovetskogo turista,’ ” 7; KP , 11 January 1929; GARF, f. A-2306,
op. 69, d. 2068, l. 17.