Americans in the Kuban region in 1927: Informal cross-cultural interactions between citizens of the Soviet Union and the United States during the New Economic Policy period

Abstract

The article examines certain aspects of the issue of crosscultural communication between citizens of Soviet Russia and the United States during the New Economic Policy (NEP) period. The academic and theoretical relevance of this topic derives both from the existing gaps in historiography and from the practical need to study the historical experience of the 1920s in order to use it in building Russian-American dialogue in the modern context. Using documents from the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, the authors examine the events that took place in August 1927 at the Tikhoretsk railway station, involving an American delegation, representatives of party and Soviet institutions, as well as local citizens of the Tikhoretsky district of the Kuban region of the North Caucasus. Archival materials reveal that the unsuspecting participants in the August events were the residents of the Kuban, whose way of life came under the close scrutiny of foreign tourists who had made an emergency stop in Tikhoretsk and visited the village of Novo-Leushkovskaya. The unexpected visit by the Americans, which took the local population and officials by surprise, led to unplanned communication between citizens of the United States and the USSR. During this interaction, both sides expanded their understanding of one another through personal experience and demonstrated socio-cultural aspects of both societies.