Could you go on vacation in the USSR?

[Comrades Unite!]

^

[p0is0n]

I had a teacher many years ago who visited the USSR and said that you were guided around. To what degree and if that ever changed, I don't know. Same teacher was invited to visit Cuba and had to fly from Moscow, since at the time, no flights from non-Warsaw Pact countries were going there.

[Rusty Shackleford]

As in to visit the soviet union and vacation on, say, the Black Sea? Or, if you lived in the fSU were you allowed vacation time?

[Comrades Unite!]

If you lived there and wanted to go on holidays.

[p0is0n]

If you lived there and wanted to go on holidays.
From what I have heard it was very difficult to travel to the west. Most of those who traveled out were doing so for professional reasons. Athletes, diplomats, etc.

Based on the various soviet passports I have collected through the years, it seems to have been much more easier to travel within the Union itself, as well as to other Warsaw Pact countries.

[Rusty Shackleford]

yes, you could.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Of course! Workers in the GDR got to go to the north sea and stay in the finest hotels with the best chefs. You had to register the trip a lot of months in advance though, but my father drove his bus to Yugoslavia in 1978 and to the Albanian border. When i went to Croatia a few years ago you could see all the old socialist bungalows that were along coast. Now of course most workers cannot afford such nice stays at the adriatic sea, north sea or black sea anymore and the rich complain about the old mass built communist buildings, which admittedly are not so nice looking, but life to normal non-brainwashed socialist humans is not solely about the aesthetic appeal of things but rather the experiences with other humans in these creations.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

You can still go on vacation to North Korea and witness firsthand the massive personality cult of the Kims. I think it'd be interesting, if just for the novelty of it.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

You could only go to Warsaw Pact countries, I believe.

[ВАЛТЕР]

You could. There are countless stories of people from Yugoslavia visiting the USSR and smuggling in Levi jeans and other western goods to sell to the Soviet citizens. In fact this was a favorite way to pay for vacations when going to an E. Block country. Yugoslavs would buy some nice jeans and whatnot and then sell it to the people in the country they were visiting at a higher price.

[Andropov]

Yes there were far far beater holiday opportunities for working class people in the USSR than there is now.
Often within a worker's contract the stated factory or industry would have a certain holiday resort that it would use and the workers would get free or subsidised holidays say on the black sea for example. Often you had workers going in families togethor, it created a great sense of community.
Many children that grew up in the Eastern Block and in the USSR have a lot of nostalgia for these old holiday resorts primarily because many simply can't afford what was previously subsidised.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

You could only go to Warsaw Pact countries, I believe.

Not only, once you registered to leave the country, you could hypothetically travel anywhere. Of course the permissions to leave to the west were more restricted, but they were still possible for people. You could go visit the west 30 days of the year (what worker can afford a leave like that nowadays?) if you had relatives or if it was a pressing matter if you didn't. Rudi Dutschke who grew up in the East for instance was a student in West Berlin when the wall was built, and he had no problems going back to visit his family. Going out you had to pass the regulations and most likely personal overview, so if you were a radical leftist or criminal they happily let you go. When my father went to the Albanian border he said he didn't go because it was "so gray" and he didn't really plan on going there. My step father who grew up in the BRD went to Yugoslavia, to Slovenia, for a long time with his family in 1974. There are a lot of pictures and it looks like they had a lot of fun travelling through the country side and meeting farmers. Essentially, if you got the permission to leave your work and country, you could travel anywhere you liked, only the passage and patrols from country to country seem to have depended on the relations of the countries, hence my father probably was put off by going over to Albania, but if you really wanted to, you could.

[helot]

Of course the permissions to leave to the west were more restricted, but they were still possible for people. You could go visit the west 30 days of the year (what worker can afford a leave like that nowadays?)

What do you mean by "you could go visit the west 30 days of the year"? The previous sentence gives the impression that it would be due to restrictions yet the brackets gives the impression to do with the person's financial situation.

So, was the average worker allowed to visit the west for a month or was the average worker capable of visiting the west for a month? The former of course isn't anything to be happy about.

[Comrades Unite!]

For people that want to see what North Korea is like when you go on holidays look at this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtYdci6VS18&feature=player_detailpage

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Not only, once you registered to leave the country, you could hypothetically travel anywhere. Of course the permissions to leave to the west were more restricted, but they were still possible for people. You could go visit the west 30 days of the year (what worker can afford a leave like that nowadays?) if you had relatives or if it was a pressing matter if you didn't. Rudi Dutschke who grew up in the East for instance was a student in West Berlin when the wall was built, and he had no problems going back to visit his family. Going out you had to pass the regulations and most likely personal overview, so if you were a radical leftist or criminal they happily let you go. When my father went to the Albanian border he said he didn't go because it was "so gray" and he didn't really plan on going there. My step father who grew up in the BRD went to Yugoslavia, to Slovenia, for a long time with his family in 1974. There are a lot of pictures and it looks like they had a lot of fun travelling through the country side and meeting farmers. Essentially, if you got the permission to leave your work and country, you could travel anywhere you liked, only the passage and patrols from country to country seem to have depended on the relations of the countries, hence my father probably was put off by going over to Albania, but if you really wanted to, you could.

Presumably none of this applied to those who dissented against the party.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Presumably none of this applied to those who dissented against the party.

On the contrary, if you were a dissenting bum socialist governments like to try to get you to go in exile. If you were a worker, you needed to register in a lot of months ahead that you want leave, you know, sort of like with your capitalist employer? If you had family in the west, you could visit them for 30 days a year, if you had pressing issues like medical ones that could not be serviced in the east, you could go to the west etc.

[m1omfg]

On the contrary, if you were a dissenting bum socialist governments like to try to get you to go in exile. If you were a worker, you needed to register in a lot of months ahead that you want leave, you know, sort of like with your capitalist employer? If you had family in the west, you could visit them for 30 days a year, if you had pressing issues like medical ones that could not be serviced in the east, you could go to the west etc.

True that. If you were a dissident, the state would want you to leave. Also, anyone could leave permanently, the catch being that you'd have to pay back all the education you recieved that state paid for you. It was basically "Ok, you ungrateful fuck, you don't like your country? Well we paid for your entire education and subsidized your food so ok, you can leave if you can pay it all back. We will not allow people to abuse our educational system to benefit capitalist countries instead of our socialist homeland.".

In a way, it was a big dick move from the state, on the other hand I can see the reason and logic.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Of course! Workers in the GDR got to go to the north sea and stay in the finest hotels with the best chefs. You had to register the trip a lot of months in advance though, but my father drove his bus to Yugoslavia in 1978 and to the Albanian border. When i went to Croatia a few years ago you could see all the old socialist bungalows that were along coast. Now of course most workers cannot afford such nice stays at the adriatic sea, north sea or black sea anymore and the rich complain about the old mass built communist buildings, which admittedly are not so nice looking, but life to normal non-brainwashed socialist humans is not solely about the aesthetic appeal of things but rather the experiences with other humans in these creations.
__________________You had to have considerable blat in order to be able to manage something like this. But it depends on what period you are referring to, OP; after all, we are talking about 80 years here. Imagine how much the US changed in 80 years. There also was a hierarchy within the USSR, so higher up government officials and bureaucrats could do this regularly, as could the well off upper-section of workers and bureaucrats. The middle- and lower-sections probably could not afford it without, as I said, significant blat; the lower sections were extremely poor.

[jookyle]

My Great-Great-Aunt was born and lived in the USSR until she died in the 70's and she came to America to visit quite often, according to my grandparents.