thinking about the world tourism and what it means in soviet (+ post-soviet) context vs the rest of the world
so the soviet union for all it pretended to be a federation - a union, you might say - was absolutely russian empire 2.0, now with bonus totalitarianism.
and being russian empire means that there are exactly 2 (two) modern cities with architecture and culture and history worth visiting: moscow and st. petersburg. and while of course there might be some silly provincials visiting them and gawking (in moscow usually while on a business trip or study trip or something, as moscow is the center of everything as is well known), the only people that MATTER, that get in any way catered or appealed to, culturally or politically, already live in moscow and have been to st petersburg for one reason or another. (they say some people also live in st petersburg but that's mostly mythical cultural icons or something)
what does this leave for tourism?
well, russia might only have two human settlements, one real and one a mythical legend (it's true, just ask any moscowite who has ever posted an address online), but it has a lot of Majestic, Untamed Nature for humanity to conquer!
(what do you mean people already live there? well maybe they do but they haven't conquered it have they. the mountain still stands, so they are basically part of the majestic landscape)
(and of course the rest of the world outside the majestic russia (im sorry i mean the soviet union wink wink) is scary evil bourgoisie, and to even go on a business trip outside the country you must pass stringent background & ideological checks, for yourself and your entire family and friend circle. obviously)
so, the "tour" part of "tourism" does not refer to the tour guide who shows you the local landmarks and gives you a historical lecture, it refers to the thrifty local who offers to show you that path through the woods so you don't get lost. or it refers to nothing at all, and tourists just barge through everything based on maps and some compasses. or go down rivers, which is marginally more reliable. they're not the foreign-language-speaking elderly folk with cameras who stay in the nearest hotel in the big city, they're the band of filthy, tired, cheerful backpackers with whining exhausted children who raid your village grocery store, empty it of pasta, salami, tomato juice and ice cream, ask you for directions to the nearest well or water pump, then for the next landmark they're looking for (which might be right there at the end of the village or over on the next mountain because they took the wrong turn), then collectively tromp off.
theres a song about this, specific to people who do this on weekends in the nearest forest (also apparently dedicated to the time when there was only one (1) weekend) (it's about the bitter rivalry of people who do this with people who farm on their dachas in the same one weekend in the same rural area, competing for space on public transportation and local forage, including sometimes the goddamn fields / kitchen gardens being treated as forage by the damn university kids with no money and no shame)
i was one of those (the mountains kind, not the nearest forest kind) once a year throughout my childhood and adolescence, ever since I was old enough by my parents' reckoning to put a backpack on me and make me walk all day every day for a week, which was when I was five. i absolutely couldnt walk all day and bitched and moaned non stop (unfortunately in a way that made my parents think i was just being whiny and not that my feet are fucked up and i am having aches that a healthy child absolutely should not be having), but nonetheless i loved it with my whole heart immediately and next year there was a whole thing with my parents blackmailing me into doing damn near anything they asked just so they'd take me with them again. (years later, as an adult, i found out that that was the year when i suddenly started peeing my pants randomly and that my mom took me to a clinic and had it politely explained to her that it's out of stress and that she should give up on the battle to make me eat things i feel nauseous even thinking about. so that's how that happened i guess)
i... have been a tourist in the other, civilized sense like four or five times in my life. (three school-organized class trips to neighbouring countries, one study course in England where we spent most of our time on the tour bus getting immersed in the language, and maybe something else i'm forgetting)
but it's not what the word means to me and it never will
(relaxing near a body of water is not tourism. it's when your workplace gives you papers for their sanatorium so you go there for your mandatory paid time off and Rest, for your health. The Resters are not the same as The Tourists at all, as they have 0 interest in local landmarks or going anywhere beyond the nearest two blocks or the distance from the sanatorium building to the shore, they're more or less locals in the first place and go the same place every year since that's where their workplace sends them. it's specifically a different word)
(if you're keeping count, this makes 3 culturally defined ways to spend your vacation or weekend somewhere that's not your home in front of the tv: The Dacha (partial sustenance farming, leaves you more physically tired but arguably healthier, and definitely richer by all the vegetables and fruit you can grow there), The Rest (veg out at some nearby body of water, swim if you're into it, just lie there with a book cosplaying a dead fish if you aren't) and The Tourism (walk paths heretofore untrodden except by all the other tourists, don't make fires outside of places marked on your map that have remnants of previous fires already visible, play guitar badly and sing very loud in the evenings))
(visiting other human settlements (don't tell the moscowites but they do exist) and staying at hotels happens too but it's not vacation, it's Work Trips, and they can be very much competed for in local office politics even in the 99% of cases when they aren't to beyond the iron curtain)
P.S. I just want to make it clear that when I use the words "tourist" and "tourism" for this it's not a case of arbitrary translation confusing two concepts. the words in Russian and Ukrainian are "turist" and "turizm" which you can recognize as excessively literal transliterations of words that were themselves literal transliterations of "tourist" and "tourism". That is literally the words we use for this.
P.P.S. the fall of the soviet union has opened other possibilities but id say the words still mostly mean the same thing. its just that The Rest in the sense of going to a body of water has been expanded to possibly be in Egypt or France or something, and to possibly include some landmark walking (controversial within families)
P.P.S. Ukraine has never been as centralized as russia and other cities than Kyiv exist. However it is significantly smaller so it's actually realistic to have friends / relatives / business in all the major cities you want an excuse to visit, plus it has enough nature to maintain the idea of tourism as mostly a nature-visiting activity, just maybe in a car instead of on two feet with a backpack now. and you know the non-nature landmarks along the way as you pass through cities. this is a whole new thing and i dont think theres a distinct cultural reaction to it yet. I will however note that the fourth distinct way to spend your time outside of your place has coalesced: The Volunteering, which absolutely can and does take you all over the country depending on what volunteering event you sign up for. my best friend irl does this a lot and ive been to like two events like this with her and its awesome, though it does require you to have a lot of Youthful Energy and a longing to do some physical labor instead of whatever else you do all day normally. obviously involves visiting places and their landmarks, still not tourism lmao
P.P.P.S tourism in our sense is a fully gender neutral activity, and in fact a common COUPLES thing. everyone knows theres no sex in soviet union, but when there's a tent and two young people in love, well don't ask don't tell as they say amirite. (privacy is thin on the ground when young people are expected to and usually only can live with their parents until at least after they get married since that's the only way to have an apartment distributed to them from the government, or to have their parents exchange their bigger apartment for multiple smaller ones) (there is in fact a whole cultural sub-thing about all-girl groups struggling to recruit at least one boy to come with to Ensure Their Safety to their worried parents and also do manly things like split firewood and carry a marginally bigger portion of heavy things in exchange for a larger portion at mealtimes) (all-boy groups notably dont have this problem and are expected to be able to cook Tourist Porridge for themselves just fine)
also theres another song - admittedly just a couplet - about this meaning of tourism, apparently a parody/corruption of another song:
"где бронепоезд не пройдет // не пролетит стальная птица // турист на пу, на пу, на пузе проползет // и ничего с ним не случится!"
"where an armored train won't pass // a steel bird won't fly through // a tourist on his bell, bell, belly'll crawl // and nothing'll happen to him"
so that probably gives you a bit more of an insight into the cultural attitude there XD
