which your investment will be well repaid in education if not in pleasure.
But to get fun out of it, too, you must understand the Intourist game, play
it, and win. Winning consists in outwitting the system so that you get more than
they intend you to get; it does not mean fair value in the fashion (for example)
that a traveler invariably gets
his money’s worth in any Scandinavian country. It is not possible to get fair value
in the USSR; the game is rigged against the American tourist. But there are ways to
minimize the expense and maximize the return while having quite a lot of fun.
All travel in the USSR is controlled at every point by Intourist; you must
buy from it all travel, all automobile and guide service, all hotel rooms, all
meals- or if you buy a meal not from Intourist you simply waste a meal already paid
for.
You buy from Intourist at four rubles to the dollar- and you are licked from
scratch as the value of the ruble is closer to forty to the dollar (which is the
rate the Soviet government gives to favored visitors such as Asians they are trying
to woo into the Communist camp).
You can cut costs by ordering cheap accommodations. Three grades are
offered: Luxe, Tourist A, and Tourist B. A single man might risk Tourist B if he did
not mind public toilets and baths of uncertain cleanliness, plus sharing sleeping
space, dormitory style; a couple might risk Tourist A, which is supposed to be (but
is not) equal to first-class travel elsewhere. But I cannot honestly urge anything
short of “Luxe” class because even the best in Russia is often shockingly bad by our
standards-bathrooms without baths, even hotels with no baths, tubs with no hot
water, plumbing that is “quaint” or worse, poor cooking, dirty utensils, maddening
waits. The lodging for Luxe class is often a huge and fantastically furnished suite,
but a firstclass double room & bath in any other country is more comfortable.
Luxe class costs $30 per day per person (3 Dec 79- Kremlin rate
$182.40-World free-market rate $370.29) and includes lodging, meal coupons, and
three hours of guide and automobile service per person (thus six hours for a
couple)-if you get it. It does not include any train, plane, or bus fares. Add these
in, plus round trip aircoach fares from New York, and a
month in the Soviet Union will cost an American couple at least $4500 (3 Dec
79-Kremlin rate $27,360.00- World rate $55,543.50), plus spending money and extras.
You will get at least twice as much for your money in any other part of
Europe, but the real problem always is to get what you have paid for and Intourist
has contracted to furnish you.
Start by realizing that Intourist is not really a travel service in the
sense in which Thos. Cook or American Express is. It is a bureau of the Communist
government and its function is to get those Yankee dollars in advance, channel you
through a fixed route, then spill you out at the far end almost as ignorant of their
country as when you started. P. T. Barnum’s famous sign “This Way to the Egress”
anticipated the basic Intourist principle: Get the sucker’s money first, then get
rid of him with the least trouble to the management.
So treat it as a game and don’t fret when you lose. Try to get a good
night’s sleep-the bed may be awful but it will be quiet because there is almost no
traffic- and try again the next day.
For example: the guide is not there to guide you, the guide is there to make
sure that you see the stadium- so try not to see a stadium anywhere in the Soviet
Union. Surely they have stadiums; any people so devoted to “Togetherness” have
stadiums-how else could they display ten thousand people all doing physical jerks at
once? (A “Spartakiad”) But remember that your fixed cost is about $20 just to look
at a stadium (with no football game thrown in) and that, in diverting you to the
stadium, Intourist has kept you from seeing something of real interest, a factory, a