Our train came down to the shore of the Black Sea and paralleled it. The whole of this coast is one gigantic summer resort. Every little distance is a great sanatorium or a hotel, and the beaches even in the morning are thronged with bathers, for this is the rest place and this is the vacation place of nearly all of the Soviet Union.

Now our train seemed to stop every few feet. And at every stop groups of people got off, groups who were assigned to one rest house or another. This is the vacation that nearly all Russian workers look forward to. It is the reward for long hard work, and it is the recuperation place for the wounded and the sick. Seeing this country, with its calm sea and its warm air, we realized why people all over Russia said to us again and again, “Just wait until you see Georgia!”

Batum is a very pleasant little tropical city, a city of beaches and hotels, and an important shipping point on the Black Sea. It is a city of parks and tree-shaded streets, and the breeze from the sea keeps it from being too hot.

The Intourist Hotel here was the finest and most luxurious in the Soviet Union. The rooms were pleasant and newly decorated, and each one had a balcony with chairs. The full-length windows made it possible to open whole rooms to the outside. After the night in an old museum-piece of a coach, we looked longingly at the beds, but they were not for us. We barely got away with a bath. Our time was running short, and we had to see a great deal in a very short time.

In the afternoon we visited several of the rest houses. They are large palaces set in magnificent gardens, and nearly all of them look out to the sea. It would be dangerous to be experts in these things. Nearly everyone who has ever traveled in Russia has become an expert, and nearly every expert cancels out every other expert. We must be very careful in what we say about these rest houses. We must repeat only what we were told in the ones we saw, and even then we’ll bet we get an argument from somebody.

The first one we visited looked like a very luxurious hotel. It was at the head of a long set of steps that led up from the beach, and it was surrounded by great trees, and in front of it was an enormous porch overlooking the water. This one was owned by a Moscow branch of the electricians’ union, and the people who stayed in it were electricians. We asked how they got to come, and we were told that in every factory, in every workshop, there is a committee which includes not only representatives of the factory workers, but a company doctor. A number of factors are taken into consideration by the committee which designates the people who are to come on vacation. There is length of service, there is physical condition, there is quality of tiredness, and there is reward for service beyond that which is required. And if a worker has been sick and needs a long rest, the medical section of his factory committee designates him for a trip to a rest house.