«Knowledge is the way to communism. excursion is the conductor of knowledge»: excursion as a form of leisure and enlightenment of Petrograders-Leningraders in 1918–1929

Abstract

Various aspects of guided tour activity for adults are considered in the article through the example of touristic organizations of Petrograd-Leningrad in 1918–1929. The author states that after the Revolution of 1917, excursion institutions were the first to be created in the structure of state organizations; at the same time, it is difficult to identify clearly the exact functions of some of them, as well as the mechanism of interaction between excursion institutions, engaged in sightseeing activities. The number of citizens involved in the guided tours by those organizations can be described as substantial. They were mostly workers. Developing the thesis of the British researcher Louise McReynolds, who noted that at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries a «conversion of the noble “traveler” into the bourgeois “tourist”» began, the author states that in the 1920s, a bourgeois tourist turned into a “proletarian” excursionist. The routes offered for “proletarian” excursionists included revolutionary sights, the memory of “the old regime”, museums, and factories. Recommended objects did not change much during the 1920s. The characteristics of participants of conducted tours encouraged employees of political education to search new forms of excursion work, like excursions for large groups. The organizers of such excursions pursued recreational and educational purposes; however, more of the excursions were entertaining. In the early 1930s, along with the development of “proletarian” tourism, importance of organizations for local excursions decreased.