Tourism and Travel during the Cold War by Sune Bechmann Pedersen Christian Noack

Author:Sune Bechmann Pedersen, Christian Noack [Sune Bechmann Pedersen, Christian Noack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367192129
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 49925192
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

And yet representations of Soviet Jewish domestic spaces are contradictory, because in spite of the aura of authenticity generally ascribed to back regions, travelogues tended not to use descriptions of apartments to make explicit generalised assertions about the Soviet Union. This was in marked contrast to the representations of public space. Travelogues were full of generalising descriptions – “Most of the streets are teeming with masses of people at all times”49 – or guidebook-style overviews like Marge Gordon’s – “We were struck by how different [Kiev] was from Moscow. It was warmer and prettier perhaps because of the many flowers in bloom, and because of the scenic Dnieper River with its many bridges. The people seemed more Western to us and more stylish (miniskirts and even platform shoes were not unusual).”50 Domestic spaces tended not to be accorded similar treatment. One young attorney’s travelogue from 1979 was a rare exception:

The visits to refuseniks showed another side of things … [and] brought to life some of the things that the Soviet In-Tourist guides discussed. We were often told, for example, about the acute housing shortage in the Soviet Union and the national goal of providing nine square meters of space for every citizen… . My visits to two Soviet apartments showed me that nine square meters provides little space and less privacy.

(Harriet Goldberg, 1979)51

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