From the creators of Soviet Bus Stops and the CCCP Cookbook comes this fun and quirky look at the strange ways of relaxation in the USSR.
Part spa and part medical institution, Soviet Sanatoriums were originally built in the 1920s for workers' holidays, courtesy of a state-funded voucher system. At their peak they were visited by millions of citizens across the USSR every year. From Armenia to Uzbekistan, and from crude-oil baths to radon water douches to stints in underground salt caves, these sanatorium are one of the stranger aspects of Soviet culture.
PROMOTION: Already an online sensation because its Kickstarter origins, this will receive the usual viral treatment across the web thanks to FUEL's huge international fan base.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Maryam Omidi has written for The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal Europe and Reuters. She was the Features Editor of The Calvert Journal, 2013-2015, an award-winning online magazine dedicated to contemporary art and culture in the New East.
THE PUBLISHERS & EDITORS: Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell's imprint Fuel has been publishing books on Soviet culture since 2004 from the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia to Soviet Bus Stops.
By Maryam Omidi. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell.
Architecturally diverse and ideologically staunch, Soviet sanatoriums were intended to edify and invigorate
Visiting a Soviet sanatorium is like stepping back in time. Originally built in the 1920s, they afforded workers a place to holiday, courtesy of a state-funded voucher system. At their peak they were visited by millions of citizens across the USSR every year. A combination of medical institution and spa, the era’s sanatoriums are among the most innovative buildings of their time.
Although aesthetically diverse, Soviet utopian values permeated every aspect of these structures; Western holidays were perceived as decadent. By contrast, sanatorium breaks were intended to edify and strengthen visitors: health professionals carefully monitored guests throughout their stay, so they could return to work with renewed vigor. Certain sanatoriums became known for their specialist treatments, such as crude-oil baths, radon water douches and stints in underground salt caves.
While today some sanatoriums are in critical states of decline, many are still fully operational and continue to offer their Soviet-era treatments to visitors. Using specially commissioned photographs by leading photographers of the post-Soviet territories, and texts by sanatorium expert Maryam Omidi, this book documents over 45 sanatoriums and their unconventional treatments. From Armenia to Uzbekistan, it represents the most comprehensive survey to date of this fascinating and previously overlooked Soviet institution.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Holidays in Soviet Sanatoriums.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Hyperallergic
Claire Voon
The nearly 200-page tome provides an overview of a very particular culture that is fascinating to outsider eyes without treating it as exotic.
in stock $32.50
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FROM THE BOOK
Excerpt from the Introduction by Maryam Omidi
Soviet-era sanatoriums are among the most innovative, and sometimes most ornamental, buildings of their time—from Kyrgyzstan’s aurora, designed in the shape of a ship, to Druzhba, a Constructivist masterpiece on the Crimean shore that sparked rumors that a flying saucer had landed. Such buildings challenge the standard notion that architecture under communism was unsightly and drab. Sprinkled across the post-Soviet landscape, they survive in varying states of decay, with relatively few still in operation. But at their peak, these sanatoriums were visited by millions of citizens across the USSR each year, courtesy of the state.
The issue of free time greatly engaged Soviet leaders as they set out to define and shape the New Soviet man. Unlike western vacations, which Soviets perceived as vulgar pursuits characterized by conspicuous consumption and idleness, holidays in the USSR were decidedly purposeful. Their function was to provide rest and recuperation, so citizens could return to work with renewed diligence and productivity. The 1922 Labor code prescribed two weeks’ holiday a year for many workers and under Joseph Stalin the ‘right to rest’ was enshrined in the 1936 constitution for all citizens of the USSR. In line with Stalin’s First and Second Five-Year Plans, writes Johanna Geisler in The Soviet Sanatorium: Medicine, Nature and Mass Culture in Sochi, 1917–1991, rapid development of the industry meant that by 1939, 1,828 new sanatoriums with 239,000 beds had been built.
It was against this backdrop that the sanatorium holiday was born. A cross between medical institution and spa, the sanatorium formed an integral part of the Soviet political and social apparatus. They were designed in opposition to the decadence of European spa towns such as Baden-Baden or Karlovy Vary, as well as to the west’s bourgeois consumer practices. Every detail of sanatorium life, from architecture to entertainment, was intended to edify workers while encouraging communion with other guests and with nature. The approach was straightforward, advocating maximum rest, evidenced by the addition of a few extra pounds on departure, which was considered a sign of robust health. This was believed to deliver maximum post-sanatorium productivity, a notion that has persisted to this day. Writing in Club Red: Vacation Travel and the Soviet Dream, Diane Koenker notes that the Soviets were proud of their progressive treatment of workers; the French, wrote Health commissar Nikolai Semashko in 1923, had only one place of rest: the cemetery.
These photographs do not get old. Holidays in Soviet Sanatoriums, one of our favorite offbeat Soviet design surveys from UK-based FUEL Publishing, collects 200 color reproductions of the interiors and exteriors of the hybrid mega-spa/medical treatment centers that proliferated in the Soviet Union during the twentieth century, as well as some of the rather unconventional-seeming treatments that took place within. Pictured here is Druzhba sanatorium. “When it was built in 1985 by architect Igor Vasilevsky and engineer Nodar Kancheli,” Maryam Omidi writes, “its neo-futuristic style … caught the eye of the Pentagon and Turkish intelligence, who mistook it for a missile-launch facility. According to Vasilevsky, others feared it might be a time-machine or a flying saucer.” Find it at the SF Art Book Fair, on view through Sunday, July 22! continue to blog
Reproduced from Holidays in Soviet Sanatoriums, just out from FUEL Publishing, this photograph captures vacationers at the Aurora sanatorium in Kyrgyzstan—one of the poorest post-Soviet states. This particular treatment involves placing ultraviolet light-emitting sterilization lamps in the ear, nose or throat to kill bacteria, viruses and fungi. Other treatments covered in the book include cupping, leeching, mud or crude oil baths, light therapy, electrotherapy, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. A universal staff favorite Holiday Gift Book 2017. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 8 x 6.5 in. / 192 pgs / 200 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $32.50 LIST PRICE: CANADA $42.5 ISBN: 9780993191190 PUBLISHER: FUEL Publishing AVAILABLE: 10/24/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by FUEL Publishing. By Maryam Omidi. Edited by Damon Murray, Stephen Sorrell.
Architecturally diverse and ideologically staunch, Soviet sanatoriums were intended to edify and invigorate
Visiting a Soviet sanatorium is like stepping back in time. Originally built in the 1920s, they afforded workers a place to holiday, courtesy of a state-funded voucher system. At their peak they were visited by millions of citizens across the USSR every year. A combination of medical institution and spa, the era’s sanatoriums are among the most innovative buildings of their time.
Although aesthetically diverse, Soviet utopian values permeated every aspect of these structures; Western holidays were perceived as decadent. By contrast, sanatorium breaks were intended to edify and strengthen visitors: health professionals carefully monitored guests throughout their stay, so they could return to work with renewed vigor. Certain sanatoriums became known for their specialist treatments, such as crude-oil baths, radon water douches and stints in underground salt caves.
While today some sanatoriums are in critical states of decline, many are still fully operational and continue to offer their Soviet-era treatments to visitors. Using specially commissioned photographs by leading photographers of the post-Soviet territories, and texts by sanatorium expert Maryam Omidi, this book documents over 45 sanatoriums and their unconventional treatments. From Armenia to Uzbekistan, it represents the most comprehensive survey to date of this fascinating and previously overlooked Soviet institution.
