Foreign tourism in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the late 1920s–1930s.

Abstract

The subject of the study is the formation and development of foreign tourism in the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) region in the first decades of Soviet power. The purpose of the paper is to describe the problems faced by the tourism industry in organizing work to attract foreign tourists. With the beginning of the "Stalinist modernization", the flow of foreign tourists is increasing. But the material and technical base of the tourism industry turned out to be completely unprepared for this. There was also a catastrophic lack of trained personnel to work with intourists. To get out of this situation, the government creates the GAO "Intourist", which becomes a monopolist in the organization and reception of foreign tourists. The methodology of the work is based on the principles of historicism and objectivity, as well as a systematic approach that allows a comprehensive examination of the subject under study. The novelty of the scientific work lies in the identification and generalization of historical sources, the involvement in scientific circulation of archival data showing the activities of the Gorky Regional Department in the period under study. The conducted research has shown that the need to open representative offices of GAO "Intourist" abroad, the organization of work with intourists already on the territory of the USSR faced an acute shortage of highly qualified personnel. The solution to this problem was the organization of courses for the training of tour guides with knowledge of foreign languages. Problems with the accommodation of intourists in hotels, poor transport provision were the result of chronic underfunding of the industry. The explanation for this is the need for industrialization in the USSR. Therefore, the tourism industry was provided on a residual basis.