186 Chapter 5
The Business of Soviet Vacations
Since the end of the war in 1945, Soviet trade union and health offi cials
had worked to expand the network of health spas and to increase access, so
that the right to rest could be utilized by the maximum number of deserv-
ing individuals. Table 5.1 indicates the considerable success in health place
investment. According to offi cial fi gures, the annual usage by Soviet citizens
grew from 3.7 million in 1950 to 16.8 million in 1970 to 40 million by 1980.
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the greatest growth, both numerically and
in terms of the percentage of the population served by the trade union and
other spas and rest homes. Even if the fi gures, which vary from source to
source, cannot be entirely believed, they do suggest that an annual trip to an
organized place of rest had become an increasingly common element in So-
viet life. But as trade union offi cials admitted year after year, this expansion,
however laudable, could not keep pace with demand that increased even
faster.^47 The Soviet standard of living continued to rise as more of the popula-
tion moved to cities and earned higher wages. Vacation time had increased:
in 1968 the normal annual paid leave lengthened from twelve workdays to
fi fteen, and at the same time, the two-day weekend took effect. The typical
Soviet working person could now expect an annual three-week vacation. The
development of air transportation shortened the journey to distant health
resorts and made them accessible to more of the population.^48 Soviet urban
consumers had acquired a taste for travel as well as the resources, both cul-
tural and fi nancial, to indulge it.- GARF, f. 9228, op. 1, d. 916, ll. 16, 95; TsGAMO, f. 7223, op. 1, d. 1252, l. 121; GARF,
f. 9493, op. 8, d. 4 (correspondence and reports on kurort development, July–December
1960), l. 10; GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 227, ll. 6, 218; GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 326, ll. 104, 309;
GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 698 (central kurort administration meetings, June 1965), ll. 20–24;
GARF, f. 9493, op. 8, d. 1669, ll. 95, 158. - Azar, Otdykh , 6–9.
Table 5.1 Health vacationers and population in the USSR, 1950–1986Year Vacationers Population Resters per 1,000 population1950 3,785,000 181,600,000 (1951) 20.8
1960 6,744,000 208,800,000 (1959) 32.3
1970 16,838,000 241,700,000 69.7
1980 40,040,000 262,400,000 (1979) 152.6
1986 50,306,000 278,800,000 180.4
Sources: For 1950 vacationers, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1974 (Moscow, 1975), 616–617. For the
1960–86 vacationers, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let. Iubileinyi statisticheskii ezhegodnik (Mos-
cow, 1987), 602. For population, Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR za 70 let, 373, and Narodnoe khoziaistvo
SSSR v 1973 g. (Moscow, 1974), 7.