All this changed in the early 1930s. Soviet society started to acquire a new ideology of leisure not just as a means of weaving citizens into a seamless collective or as a brief interlude between bouts of shock labor and social combat on the factory floor but rather as a cultural experience that could make an important contribution to the new Soviet way of life and the formation of a new Soviet citizen. It is around this time that the Soviet discourse on leisure—as something quite distinct from work—begins in earnest. As one slogan of the time ran: “Working in the new way means relaxing in the new way too.” In part, the new attitude toward leisure was reflected in practical measures. Existing facilities were to be expanded and improved.74 Parks, such as those surrounding the palaces in the Leningrad region, were to have extra facilities provided. In Detskoe (formerly Tsarskoe) Selo, accordingly, the number of visitors was expected to increase from 500,000 in 1933 to 945,000 in 1934.75 Quantitative improvements were matched by qualitative changes, as leisure institutions took account of the cultural advances proclaimed on behalf of Soviet society. New rest homes retained their function of collective, organized recreation, but the pattern of life they imposed was not so militarized as in the 1920s. As one article explained, things had moved on greatly from earlier vacation camps, where the only cultural work that went on was folk dancing, the only way of combating drunkenness was to destroy all alcoholic drinks on the premises, and the staff were dismayed by the uncivilized behavior of the “masses.”76
In a booklet of 1933 Soviet functionaries and their families were offered advice on
how “correctly to organize their recreation, [how] most rationally to make use of
their day off.” Such people were urged to take advantage of leisure and to take part
in mass events in such prime greenbelt locations as Gorki, Arkhangel’skoe, Zvenigorod,
and Kolomenskoe; in moments free from physical activities they might indulge in a
bit of local history in a museum.77 In 1934, about 800 institutions were offering summer leisure activities in the Moscow
region; the total number of beds was 90,000. Each summer weekend, approximately 500,000
Muscovites set off into the greenbelt.78 In 1936
The new approach to leisure had a parallel in public discussion of housing and settlement.
Debates on architecture and town planning in the first half of the 1920s had been
dominated by a generation that took seriously Marx’s promise of a communist lifestyle
that would harmoniously integrate urban and rural environments. The three main models
proposed (linear urban growth, the compact city [
