Institutionalization of the Soviet tourism system in the Kola North

The article examines the processes of tourism formation in the Kola North during the first postrevolutionary decades. The novelty of the research lies in the analysis of tourism and excursion activities in the territory of the region between the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, carried out on the basis of archival and published sources, and enabling to identify the features of this phenomenon in the specified period, as well as to determine the main directions and chronological stages of its development. The relevance of the article is determined by the need to study the Soviet experience in organizing tourism in order to compare it with modern practices implemented under conditions when the tourism and recreation sphere is recognized as one of the priority areas of the socio-economic development of the Murmansk region. During the studied period, the state sought to involve tourism activities participants in serving political and propaganda goals or fulfilling practical tasks (such as mineral exploration, studying remote areas, exchange of production experience, etc.). Various combinations of sightseeing and educational, package, and mass amateur tourism were most common in the Kola North. In the first half of the 1920s, the Murmansk Railway began systematic work on the formation of a tourist destination in the region. The regional system of tourism and excursion activities was formed by the mid-1930s, which was largely the result of the work of the local structures of the Society of Proletarian Tourism and Excursions.