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The City Instruction, Regulation, and Isolation 1May 1920 reports glorified the transformation of a mortar-and-stone reminder of tsarist oppression-a palace on Kamennyi Island in Petrograd -into a House of Leisure.I In this revolutionized palace, as well as others like it reclaimed allover the former empire, workers spent their annual two-week vacation learning how to rest rationally, for in the workers' state even leisure time had to be productive. Doctors, dietitians, and health practitioners guided the vacationers and educated them for their return home with a simple yet rigid regimen consisting of nutritious food, timed naps, edifying activities, and physical exercise. Sutured together from the palaces of the past and electrified by dreams of the future, the House of Leisure provided a retreat for workers poisoned by the capitalist-tainted, urban environment or by workplace stress. These therapeutic centers received a considerable amount of attention both for their ideological and curative potential. Organizers confiscated palaces, monasteries, and summer retreats for the benefit of workers.2 Socialist concepts redeemed these former bourgeois mansions and church properties. White paint and light colors transformed grand ballrooms into lecture halls and reading rooms, although gilded furniture with satin upholstery remained. Propagandists crowed that where formerly a family of 8 had resided now 150 children and staff lived and convalesced.3 The confiscation and resurrection of these buildings served as visible testimony to the state's goals, while also articulating power in new, modern ways. Rather than displaying power, as in edifices of old, these buildings were meant to transform and, in the style of Bentham's panopticon, disperse power throughout the population. They reflected the efforts of governments around the world where reformers believed, as Foucault so cunningly put it, "stones can make people docile and knowable:'4 These structures, used to contain and tame, showed the power of the Soviet state to change the physical 70 Instruction, Regulation, and Isolation 71 environment, reflecting the hope that it could manipulate human behavior, as well as the faith of the hygienists that physical change precipitated socialist conscIOusness. Hygienists argued that leisure did not come naturally. While the term for leisure, otdykh, can be translated as "rese' this was not Soviet leisure.s Instead of leaving workers free to determine their time away from work, these hours had to buttress the eight hours of labor. Hygienists attributed low worker productivity to slovenly leisure. Drinking and carousing all night on the dangerous streets of the city weakened workers. Proper leisure-such as club activities, physical culture, and excursions-restored and invigorated workers. For those already ill, organized leisure provided a cure. In urban night and day institutions , as well as in sanatoriums in the countryside, doctors tailored leisure time and sleep regimens to patients' illnesses, theorizing that adherence to such regimens would prove a cure-all. Healthy leisure, together with home and bodily care, would mold citizens into a modern industrial force-strong of body and politically sound of mind. If the people gave themselves over to the institutions of leisure, hygienists argued, productivity and culture would rise and the revolution would triumph. Writers recommended that workers exploit their leisure time and use it to rejuvenate their body and enrich themselves. Healthy leisure served as a basis for further cultural activity and expanded, challenged, and informed the mind as well as the body. Cultural leisure spaces provided political enlightenment through entertainment. A healthy, informed, and rested population would lead the way to the socialist utopia. By encouraging workers to use their leisure time wisely, reformers sought to mobilize men and women for revolutionary goals. For those who could not abandon their old forms of leisure, new institutions were created to isolate them after work, buffering them from the pernicious influences of the city and engaging them actively in living healthfully. Within the city, night and day sanatoriums, day squares (outdoor day camps), and prophylactory (rehabilitation and reeducation facilities) took sickly workers and children and surrounded them with therapeutic influences in the hope of reworking the mind and body. The extremely ill stayed in sanatoriums tailored to their needs and located well outside the stifling confines of the city. In these institutions doctors promised full recovery to patients who followed the regimen and rested in a proper way. Not all workers welcomed instruction. They held their own ideas of what constituted good leisure. Much to hygienists' dismay, many workers continued to drink, dance, and play cards. For women, obligations of home and family prevented...

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