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12/24/08 - Visit Soviet Russia

While reading a February 1932 issue of Fortune we came across a tourist opportunity that we had somehow missed, a tour of Soviet Russia. In 1932, the Soviet Union was barely 15 years old. In hindsight, it was 20% down, with 80% yet to go. Given how many jokes have been made about tours of Soviet tractor factories, award winning collective farms and endless ranks of modern apartment blocks, the advertisement sounds like a parody of itself.

Mind you, the ice breaker tour of the Arctic and the opening of the Dnieprostroy Dam sound pretty neat. There's also ostalgia, nostalgia tourism of Soviet era relics. If people are willing to ride around Berlin in Trabants, maybe there is room for Soviet retro-tourism in our post-Soviet world.

Keywords: fortune, historical