Tourism from Under the Iron Curtain: How Did Citizens of the USSR Go Abroad and What Difficulties Awaited Them?
It was extremely difficult for a Soviet citizen to get a foreign ticket. To do this, everyone had to collect a mountain of certificates, win the approval of many commissions, and also pass a special interview in the KGB. And that was just the beginning of the trial. We decided to recall how the Soviet government limited its people from the vices of bourgeois society, making their trips abroad as clumsy and boring as possible. However, the Soviet people always found a way out of the situation.
Only exemplary citizens could leave the Iron Curtain
As you remember, no one could travel abroad at any time. It took a reason, and even a business trip didn’t guarantee success. Organized tourism in the USSR existed through the state company “Intourist” or there was a bureau of international youth tourism “Sputnik”. But it was unrealistic to just come and buy a tour, because you also had to get a passport. And foreign vouchers were distributed among trade unions and given to employees as an encouragement. So a woman, being a housewife, pregnant or retired, had nothing to hope for.
If the approval for departure was approved, it was required to provide a reference. This document was signed by the leadership of the party and trade union organizations at the place of work and the head of your enterprise, and then the reference was sent to the district or city committee of the CPSU. After that, the case was received by the regional department of the KGB, and the final verdict was issued by a special commission. In addition to a pile of paperwork, the prospective tourist had to prepare for a personal interview, which would test “life experience” and political awareness for “possible conversations with foreigners.” It was like an exam. You must know both the history of the workers’ movement and the materials of the congresses of your native CPSU, as well as the biographies of the party leaders of the country where you are going.
So we prepared for the trip three or six months in advance. There are cases when those who were divorced, reprimanded at work, had relatives with a criminal record or unpleasant appearance did not receive approval. Yes, a tourist from the country of the Soviets had to be impeccable in all respects. However, the strictness of the laws was compensated by the fact that they were not required to be implemented due to nepotism and corruption schemes. Thus, the most prestigious vouchers, sea cruises or trips to capitalist countries, were often given exclusively to “their” people, or in exchange for a service. For example, a trip to Finland was equated to a scarce imported furniture set.
Proceed to where they are waiting for us
By the way, everyone knew that it was useless to dream about any particular country, because you would only go where they would take you. In the USSR, there were annual plans. For example, machine builders from the same region received 40 trips to the GDR and Czechoslovakia, one tour to the United States, Iraq and Lebanon, and several more cruises around Europe, Asia, Africa and along the Danube. As a result, 843 vouchers were provided for two and a half million people.
The geography of the trips usually fell on the states of the Warsaw Pact (Warsaw Pact), namely Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. In the 1960s and 1970s, Bulgaria was especially popular for seaside holidays. By the way, it was then that the sayings “A chicken is not a bird, Bulgaria is not abroad” and “Bulgaria is the 16th republic of the USSR” were born among the people. In this country, Soviet citizens were treated favorably, and there was practically no language barrier.
Geopolitics determined tourist routes. Finland was the most beloved capitalist country, and India, with which the Soviet government also had good relations, was the most beloved of the Third World. Egypt, which is popular in our time, opened up to Soviet tourists during the period of rapprochement between Moscow and Cairo. But things were changing rapidly. If in 1960 you were still expected in Albania and China, then in the next year you are no longer welcome because of the contradictions between the states. In 1959, the Cuban Revolution took a new turn, and the Hungarian Revolution and the landing of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia reduced the number of trips, albeit only for a few years. True, such things could not be called calm. For example, the Czechs often refused to serve tourists from the USSR, insulted and could attack.
Instructions for tourist behavior
An extremely important aspect for the trip was the instructions on how to behave abroad. In the council of trade unions, future tourists were told how they should behave during the trip Because it was implied that first of all you are going to represent your socialist homeland. So please serve as an unspoken element of propaganda. In the 1920s, special rules of conduct were developed for citizens traveling abroad. Moreover, it was constantly updated. For example, The 1947 instruction required “a thorough study of the organization of production, the state of technology, the production capacity and the methods of work” of foreign enterprises and institutions. Then there was a recommendation to learn everything “that could be useful for the development of the national economy and culture of our country.”
In addition, if a Soviet citizen was sent to the country from a people’s democracy, he had to “contribute to the further strengthening of fraternal friendship and cooperation between states.” He was to lead an “exemplary and modest life,” to have a “neat and tidy” appearance, and in principle to “strictly observe the principles of the moral code of the builder of communism.”. So no casual acquaintances and gifts. However, everyone was to show “reasonable sociability” and explain to the local residents “the peace-loving foreign policy of the Soviet government and the achievements of the Soviet people in the development of the economy, science, culture and other areas of communist construction.”
It should be noted that the strict implementation of these recommendations could lead to sad consequences. For example, one of the Soviet reports says that Czechoslovak citizens tried several times to attack a group of tourists from the Perm region by throwing stones at their bus. The Czechs did not like the fact that the Soviet citizens tried to “to explain to them the policy of our Party and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, convincing and showing the fallacy of their views, giving them food for thought in re-evaluating events and phenomena.”
In the event that you were lucky enough to get approval for a trip to the bastion of capitalism, the rules were even stricter. Soviet tourists were required to be wary of enemy intelligence officers who “seek to obtain information from Soviet citizens that are of interest to them, to compromise the Soviet person when it is beneficial to them, up to and including inducement to treason”. In addition, it was strictly forbidden to indulge in the vices of bourgeois society. The instruction stated that “visiting nightclubs, cinemas in which anti-Soviet or pornographic films are shown, and other places of dubious entertainment, as well as participation in gambling, is inadmissible; visiting areas inhabited by emigrants or other categories of the population hostile to the USSR and abusing alcoholic beverages, appearing in public places and on the street in a state of intoxication.”
The price of the issue
Of course, a trip abroad was associated with a lot of expenses. A trip to a socialist country for a couple of weeks was equal to the amount of 200 rubles or the average monthly salary. A trip to India was estimated at twice as much, and a cruise around Europe cost from 500 to 800 rubles. The cost of forays to Cuba and South America reached a thousand rubles.
All these are very impressive amounts. However, if you were a leader in production or a winner of social competitions, then the company promised to cover part of the costs. At least according to the law. In fact, acquaintances and personal affection played an important role, so someone was compensated for the cost of the voucher not partially, but completely. For example, executives and their family members were lucky.
Soviet-style shopping
Imported goods, especially from capitalist countries, were in unprecedented demand, so any trip was a chance to get hold of high-quality and scarce things. Usually, the lucky ones brought clothes, shoes and household goods, including vases, sets, chandeliers, and sometimes inexpensive and compact household appliances. Some imported items were simply resold by tourists. Two or three pairs of boots or jeans easily compensated for the cost of the trip.
However, no one could count on a real shopping tour. In the system of Soviet tourism, there was a so-called exchange fund: an amount of currency that was given out in hand for pocket expenses. Most often, it was an amount of tens of Soviet rubles. If we talk about foreign money, then tourists fled to exchange offices or to enterprising street money changers. For this reason, citizens of the USSR often fell victim to fraudsters, because no one could imagine what the Bulgarian lev, the Hungarian forint or the Romanian leu looked like. At the same time, foreign banks accepted only ten-ruble banknotes for exchange. Sometimes local guides helped to change the “contraband” money.
Made in the USSR
If you thought that the Soviets took only what they would use on their trips, you are mistaken. Many tried to sell or exchange everything that was made in the USSR. Thus, souvenirs in the form of nesting dolls or painted spoons, cigarettes and perfume were used. In some countries, vodka, black caviar, cameras, electric shavers, and jewelry were quickly sold.
Obviously, all the instructions forbade the sale and exchange of things brought from the Soviet Union. And if the head of the group found out or at least suspected such a thing, he recorded it in the report. And it got to the point of ridiculousness. For example, in Croatia, a tourist, according to him, lost his Zenit camera. As a result, the report states that the man “is confused in explanations. And without my permission as the leader of the group, although in their spare time, P. and H. went to the strips, despite the fact that the tickets are quite expensive, from 35 to 50 dinars.”
Often, the trade was stopped with the help of control by another person. A group of Soviet tourists in Algeria tried unsuccessfully to sell a camera and an electric shaver. As soon as the leader found out about this, the culprit was placed in one room with a politically proven comrade so that he could control him. And for the rest of the trip, the leader and other authoritative members of the group had preventive conversations with him and threatened him with an early departure to his homeland.
By the way, it was also not possible to export everything from abroad and within reasonable limits. In addition to bans on s**nography and anti-Soviet literature, it was allowed to buy only jeans and one denim suit. In this regard, tourists either hid their belongings or wore one set of clothes under another. Famous and comical cases. For example, it was forbidden to export mohair from Yugoslavia, which is why Soviet women took knitting needles with them on trips and knitted a shawl or a cape to unravel it later and straighten the threads over the steam. In the GDR, girls often bought nightgowns, thinking that these were fashionable European sundresses. Naturally, the locals were shocked to see the group in such a form.
Not an Ounce of Tourism Without Ideology
The organizers took care not only of compliance with the rules, but also that tourists were not influenced, let’s say, by unnecessary information. Therefore, in all the hotels there were fresh issues of Pravda, Izvestia and Trud on the tables, and in some places Soviet television was working. Cruise ships even broadcast Leonid Brezhnev’s books “Virgin Lands” and regularly reported news from the Soviet Union.
In their routes, the guides also could not do without a political and ideological component. Soviet tourists spent a lot of time on places related to the history of the communist movement. They were taken to Lenin’s apartments-museums in Paris and Tampere, to the printing house of the newspaper Iskra in Leipzig, to the grave of Karl Marx in London. Excursions to concentration camps and monuments to Soviet soldiers were attached. In some places, solemn wreath-laying took place, the money for which was voluntarily and forcibly handed over by the tourists themselves. There were also friendship evenings during the trips, to which the hosts were accompanied by the same specially selected ideological local residents.
Recruitment Through Bed
S*x tourism did not officially exist in the Soviet Union. At the same time, any relations with foreigners were considered defamatory things. And if you were accused of adultery or promiscuity, it meant only one thing: the authorities were afraid of the recruitment of foreign intelligence services. However, there have been more than one sensitive incident in the travel reports. Most often, women were blamed for them.
In Egypt, for example, one group leader pointed out that a tourist “had repeatedly met with a local Arab with whom she allegedly studied in Moscow. Unbeknownst to anyone, she brought him, according to herring, vodka. In spite of my prohibition, I visited his apartment twice in the evening and drove out of Cairo.” Another report states that another group of tourists from Gorky “met a Pole on the train and did not spend the night in her compartment, and later explained that she had allegedly stood in the vestibule all night. In Leipzig, after the evening of the meeting, she tried to leave on a motorcycle with a German.” In general, everyone understood everything.
By the way, Bulgaria occupied a special place in terms of temptations. A 1968 report noted that “Bulgarians are young men, apparently taking into account past experience, drive their own cars every evening to the hotels where tourists from the USSR live and try to make acquaintances with young women. After the acquaintances, they brought their female acquaintances at four or five in the morning. This was not noticed in our group, although offers of visits were received both verbally and in writing.”
There were also absurd statements from meticulous leaders. Some accused their wards of frivolity for anything: “wearing trousers,” “making unnecessary acquaintances,” “expressing unnecessary enthusiasm,” or “exchanging addresses.” Sometimes Soviet tourists visited not only cultural institutions. For example, one day Perm students said they wanted to go to a strip bar. The leader of the group failed to dissuade them, so I had to go with them and watch the chastity of the charges: “In the bar they got drunk, and then with difficulty the guide and the warden snatched some of them from the embrace of the men.”
Tourism and the KGB went hand in hand
Naturally, the special services played a significant role in Soviet tourism. In the declassified documents, the KGB of the Lithuanian SSR was instructed to instruct “to provide for the inclusion of verified agents and trusted persons” in the composition of tourist groups. Therefore, in capitalist countries, each group had one escort, but tourists often traveled to socialist countries without agents at all. Usually, the escort followed those who had gone abroad under the guise of an interpreter. True, an agent in the USSR and an agent in the United States are not the same thing, so KGB employees in the field of tourism were often the most ordinary people who carried out secret orders from the leadership. That is, they had a basic civilian job, and only on rare occasions could they receive any remuneration from the KGB for their tourist activities.