“Behind the scenes of Soviet leisure”: commercial activities of recreation and leisure parks in the USSR using the example of Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Perm (1930s–1950s)

Abstract

The article analyzes the commercial activities of Soviet recreation and leisure parks in the 1930s and 1950s, using the example of parks in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Perm, to ex amine how they developed their own strategies for economic survival in the conditions of chronic underfunding from city budgets and strict ideological control. It focuses on survival strategies and economic initiatives to address the lack of funding for parks and explores commercialization mechanisms using the example of recreation and leisure parks in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Perm. These mechanisms include organizing paid services and events, developing a network of shopping pavilions, restaurants, and attractions, and establishing subsidiary industries, such as workshops and advertising bureaus to fulfill third-party orders. The article reconstructs the conflict between party attitudes and economic feasibility, analyz ing how the park administration addressed the challenge of survival in the face of bureaucratic regulation, unstable demand, and seasonal income. Severe conditions led both to legal initiatives and “shady practices”, such as ticket fraud, abuses in the catering system, and financial miscon duct. The commercial activities of recreation and leisure parks have become an integral part of their operation, gradually transforming the rigid ideological “framework” of their activities in to spaces for ideological education, private life, and leisure for citizens.