27.07.2007. Traveling, beyond doubt, has deep roots in Central Asia. Suffice it to recollect the fact that it is across this very region that the Great Silk Road was running. Innumerable caravans loaded with goods of every description and accompanied by merchants, skilled craftsmen, scholars and travelers moved along the ancient route for centuries. En route they stopped to stay overnight in caravanserais based in the world’s renowned cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Shakhrizabs, Tashkent etc. The primary aim of this review, however, is not the history of traveling within the region from time immemorial. Instead, its focus will be on the development of travel in Central Asia over the past 90 years.
The period of proletarian tourism formation (1917-1930)
After the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, the territory of Central Asia appeared under the communist party’s overall control. A civil war continued the devastation of the leisure sector’s infrastructure. In particular, the material base available at the time was ruined. At this stage, it is worth mentioning that it comprised holiday hotels, guest houses, country rest homes for functionaries and army officers, as well as special farms intended for hunting and horse-racing built by Russian colonizers. This means it was necessary to start forming the tourist industry practically from scratch. Needless to say, the sector didn’t top the list of economic priorities in that period. That’s why emphasis was placed on those elements of tourist infrastructure that local authorities managed to preserve or reconstruct. To tackle the problem of accommodation shortage, dwelling houses of local aristocrats situated on the territory of Turkestan Governor-Generalship and the Ferghana Valley were expropriated. With the conquest of Bukhara by the Red Army, the Emirate’s rich infrastructure, including beautiful country houses, summer palaces and residences owned by local feudals changed hands. Later on, all those buildings were used to accommodate holiday-making servicemen, Soviet and party functionaries, guests from Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, some of the expropriated edifices were turned into orphanages for homeless children and shelters for refugees from different regions of the former tsarist empire. Between 1919 and 1924, there were about 50 such establishments. Apart from merely providing a roof and rehabilitating their visitors, they were also involved in the organization of tourism. It was the period of close contact between Russians and local inhabitants, with the former getting to know the regional culture and traditions, as well as the mode of life of its denizens.
1918 saw the creation in Russia of the first tourist organization, called the Bureau for School Excursions. Three months later, its branches emerged in Turkestan. Following the passage of decrees on health-improving areas, all sorts of resorts were opened across the region. Construction of tourist centers, sanatoria, pioneer camps, resorts etc. was under way all over the place. Churches, country houses and estates of domestic landowners as well as other unique architectural masterpieces owned by rich people, which are now regarded as historical monuments, were easily transformed into public rest houses. It needs to mention in this context that although these decrees were mainly approved by the government of the Russian Federation, they were applicable to all territories of the former tsarist empire.
Let it be noted here that despite the fact that tourism was not prioritized as a separate sector, such issue as the organization of recreation for working masses was raised time and again by new governments of the People’s Soviet Republic of Bukhara and the People’s Soviet Republic of Khorezm. The main problem facing the local authorities was the scarcity of available resources, including accommodation facilities, foodstuffs, specially trained personnel etc. With the formation in 1924 of the Uzbek SSR and its subsequent entry into the USSR, all directives issued by the communist party and the Soviet government were binding upon all newly-established national republics. And the tourist sector was no exception. Almost all tourist infrastructure facilities in the region were serviced by Russia’s representatives, who arrived in Central Asia to handle a range of socio-political and economic issues. The bulk of holiday-makers in local rest houses and resorts was accounted for by high-rank functionaries and their family members, with industrial workers making up a minor portion. By the start of 1929, there were already 160 tourist facilities in Turkestan, whose capacity, however, was limited owing to a variety of reasons. What’s more, local inhabitants represented only 20-30 per cent of their total staff, meaning that specialists from regions other than Central Asia were widely employed there.
Since 1925, an important process of creation of new socio-economic prerequisites started to unfold in the region, following the ongoing process of nationalization of feudal and capitalist enterprises based on the territory of the Tashkent Province and in the towns of Namanghan, Andijan, Bukhara and Samarkand. The excursion and tourist movement initiated by Russian intelligentsia was gaining strength at the same time. Official documents stated that “as a result of the restoration and reconstruction of the national economy and the development of the cultural revolution, the first establishments of proletarian tourism started to appear, whose aim was to organize massive recreation of work people and to meet their cultural needs and demand for studying the motherland’s cultural values and nature”. Schools, museums, komsomol organizations etc. were combining efforts to meet the target. Sub-divisions set up at tourist societies arranged all kinds of excursions and walking tours. In 1920, there was founded the United Lecture and Excursion Bureau in Russia, with a view to ensuring popularization of proletarian tourism and excursion activity. Its branches and prototype organizations were then founded in Uzbekistan, in particular in Tashkent and the Tashkent and Samarkand Provinces, for workers and employees. Tourist visits and excursions were organized by trade unions. It should be noted here that as this work was not paid for, it was carried out by enthusiasts and volunteers who were not on permanent staff. In spite of this fact, they were the first to develop more or less comprehensive tourist programs and routes. In the Samarkand Province alone, there were as many as 23 popular tourist routes at the time. However, the profitability of tourist facilities and resorts remained low – some 20 per cent.
Naturally, a complex criminal situation and social disturbances in some of the republic’s districts were hardly conducive to the development of tourism in the region. For instance, peasant revolts took place in the Ferghana Valley and the Khorezm Province, whose inhabitants protested against the “military communism” policy and tyranny of Soviet administration. That several areas were dominated by basmatch counter-revolutionary robber bands made the situation worse. Armed bandits frequently robbed tourists, with local militia being unable to guarantee their safety. It is for this reason than the hospitality industry thrived only in two locations, namely the Tashkent and Samarkand Provinces.
As the population’s interest for active tourism and excursions grew, the necessity to train special cadres came to the fore. Excursion centers were the first to start preparing professional guides and tourism organizers. Their work was aided by certain steps taken by the government to develop the tourist sector. All of them were focusing on creating a material and technical base and training professional cadres for tourism. Moreover, understanding the directions, which should be given priority attention, was gradually taking a clear-cut shape: centralization of tourist activity; provision of tourists and sightseers with means of transport, accommodation, food, guide-books and information on tourist destinations; preparation of professional organizers, guides and group leaders. Teachers and active komsomol members became the first professionals in Soviet tourism. Special tourist bureaus set up at komsomol committees were tasked with providing assistance to local mass-travel societies and performing reference-instructing functions. These bureaus comprised the following sections: study of local lore, camp-based tourism, long-distance tourism and suburban tourism. Apart from accumulating tourism-related materials, such as maps, route descriptions etc., these organizations were busy building cooperative links with public-catering enterprises, hotels, municipal and transport services. In short, their efficient activity was highly contributive to the formation of tourism as an independent industry.
As the development of corresponding infrastructure continually gained in scope, a growing number of people from Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus showed interest for Uzbekistan’s attractive tourist routes. With the Turksib railway line put into service and new main lines being under construction, Central Asia increasingly turned into one of the USSR’s most popular mass recreation destinations. Inhabitants of Uzbekistan, in turn, could visit tourist destinations in the European part of the country and the Caucasus. Concerted efforts by trade unions and komsomol organizations in the field of tourism made it possible to introduce preferential tariffs on travel by railway for tourists, to lease premises for tourist camps, to acquire the necessary tourist outfit etc. All this was needed to render tourist services, which were partially funded by trade unions. At the same time, with the Soviet economy developing at a quick pace, there appeared a stratum of people who could afford to pay for tourist services and travel, thus laying down the foundation of elite tourism. A lot of commercial organizations emerging countrywide offered a range of travels and excursions for solvent sections of the population in different regions of the USSR. By the end of 1929, their number reached 45, of which 30 provided services to guests from other republics.
In 1925, in accordance with a decision by the Soviet government, the state joint-stock company, called Soviet Tourist (GAO Sovtur) was set up in the USSR, with a view to organizing trips on motor-ships and trains and servicing groups of holiday-makers traveling on certain routes. The territory of Uzbekistan was included in Sovtur’s scheme of operation, since one of the latter’s functions was the formation of a network of tourist centers and regional-study tours throughout the Soviet Union. This means that the period under discussion saw the introduction of planned management mechanisms, with tourism assuming a distinct character of separate economic sector. Despite declarations of its orientation towards the servicing of work people, Sovtur’s tourist centers quickly turned into the rest sites for its shareholders and their family members (who were high-paid intelligentsia, including high-rank party workers and Soviet bureaucracy). Industrial and agricultural workers, however, had little chance of spending their holiday there. By the year 1930, the number of commercial organizations specializing in tourism halved.
What characterized this period of tourism development was a clash of economic systems: a nascent market system and a centralized command control system, whose outcome was predetermined. With the New Economic Policy curtailed, the Soviet system of management started reigning supreme across all economic sectors. The following trends characterizing that period are worth mentioning:
- creation of small and medium-sized commercial enterprises involved in tourism;
- formation of the market for tourist services and the elite nature of their consumption;
- creation of far-flung tourist infrastructure, including restaurants, hotels, transport networks etc.;
- break-down of tourism into two distinct types: servicing of well-to-do layers of the population and excursion (recreation) tourism for intelligentsia;
- establishment of tourist firms, bureaus, companies, clubs, societies etc.
In the 1930s, however, all of them were either re-organized or liquidated .
