A Review of Alan D. Roe, Into Russian Nature. Tourism, Environmental Protection, and National Parks in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, 344 pp.

Abstract

The book by Alan Roe, visiting assistant professor of history at Loyola University, discusses the role of tourism for the Soviet and post-Soviet nature protection movement, particularly for the creation of national parks. The first part of the book is devoted to the problem at the “state” level, within the borders of the Russian Federation. The second part examines the role of tourism in the history of individual national parks in different regions—from Karelia to Chukotka. The final part discusses the ambitious projects of creating special protected areas and the difficulties encountered while implementing these projects, as well as in preserving already established parks during the post-Soviet decades. The monograph is based on a wide range of sources, including regional archives, personal archives of influential figures of the Soviet nature protection movement and interviews with them. The author of the review highly appreciates the work of Alan Ro as a study that fills a significant gap in Russian historiography.