The Modernization of Soviet Tourism 267
1970s an all-union scientifi c research laboratory for tourism and excursions
provided professional expertise, conducting its own surveys and advising
the tourism central council. Responding to demands for skilled service and
management personnel, the Higher School of the Central Trade Union Coun-
cil opened a department of tourism in 1973 and graduated its fi rst class in
- In 1982 training programs all over the country were consolidated into
a single tourism training institute, offering instruction to eighteen thousand
paid and volunteer tourism instructors, guides, and managers.^17
Offi cials acknowledged that modern marketing methods could help to ex-
pand the appeal of Soviet tourism by better informing the public about its
educational and social benefi ts. Tourism councils had placed advertisements
in central newspapers in the 1960s, listing available itineraries for the com-
ing year; posters highlighted visually the appeal of a tourist vacation. One of
these featured a photograph of Leningrad’s Bronze Horseman statue and the
slogan “Tourism: Rich Impressions.”^18 Marketing surveys also began in the
1960s, as noted earlier, with public polls in central newspapers and scientifi c
polling carried out by Komsomol'skaia pravda’ s survey research department
and by the Plekhanov Economics Institute.^19 In 1969 the tourism council cre-
ated its own publicity bureau, Turist, which would place advertisements,
design souvenirs and putevki, and furnish guidebook copy to local tourism
organizations.^20
As the centerpiece of the new tourism publicity effort came the launch of
a monthly magazine, Turist , the long-awaited successor to On Land and On
Sea. Activists had keenly felt the absence of such a publication, lamenting
the fact that only the Soviet Union and Luxemburg lacked one.^21 Finally, in
1966 the central TEU was able to allocate suffi cient funds to begin publi-
cation. For partisans of physical tourism, the magazine offered articles on
interesting destinations and provided instruction on tourist skills such as
orienteering and storm-proofi ng tents. Turist also used its full-page color
photos and feature articles to entice potential travelers to sign up for exotic
itineraries to distant parts of the Soviet Union. Judging by comments from
offi cials and readers, the new magazine never achieved the popularity of its
predecessor. With a planned circulation of two hundred thousand, subscrip-
tions reached eighty-two thousand in 1967, but most tourists buying package
tours had never heard of it, and independent tourism activists complained
that it catered too much to these very pajama tourists. Turist reached its peak
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 632, ll. 92–97; Tat'iana Glushkova, “Iskusstvo ne bylo, byl
inventar',” LG, 20 November 1968, 10; Abukov, Turizm segodnia i zavtra, 10, 118; Trud, 21
May 1968; 21 May 1970; 3 December 1976; 14 January 1982.
- Trud, 24 January 1965; 24 April 1965.
- Grushin, Chetyre zhizni; Trud, 10 July 1966; Azar, Otdykh, 4; Azar, Ekonomiki, 5.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 1272, l. 40.
- GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 750, l. 160; TsAGM, f. 28, op. 3, d. 2 (Moscow tourism council
plenums, April, September 1962), l. 67; GARF, f. 9520, op. 1, d. 447 (central tourism council
plenum, September 1962), l. 140; d. 578 (tourism offi cials’ conference, April 1963), l. 50;
d. 631, l. 155.
