Leisure time of workers in Tyumen during the first five-year plans (1928-1941)

Leisure time, an essential component of people’s everyday life, plays a particularly crucial role in personality development. The relevance of studying leisure time lies in the necessity to define the value orientations of social groups, allowing for a more detailed examination of societal conditions. This article analyzes for the first time, based on materials from Tyumen, the administrative center of Siberian Trans-Urals, the process of upbringing during the early Five-Year Plans of the “new man”, whose image, in the authorities’ perception, was associated with the highest form of social activity and a deeply meaningful “happy” life. It is established that the formation of new norms and values was built not only through the propagation of communist ideology but also through its integration into everyday life and mass culture. The active and passive forms of organizing leisure time among workers of Tyumen’s industrial enterprises are explored, tracing their evolution amidst Soviet modernization. It is demonstrated that within the structure of workers’ leisure time, elements of disruptive deviation persisted, detailing their causes and influence on societal processes. The author concludes that socio-cultural changes in the lives of the working class lagged behind the modernization processes in the city’s and the state’s economy.