ABSTRACT
The techniques of hospitality refer to the entire range of measures designed to influence the perception and judgment of the guests; it is a form of attempted persuasion by "evidence," the evidence of the senses. Making the visitor feel pampered and comfortable and enlarging his sense of well-being and importance was the first essential stage in the deployment of the techniques of hospitality. The next one was the actual tour: showing him the carefully selected sights, events, institutions, groups, and individuals and isolating him from others not conducive to a favorable assessment of the social system he was being introduced to. For some reasons the personal treatment of the guests may well be the most important part of the techniques of hospitality, even more important than the selective presentation of various aspects of the social system. Jerzy Gliksman was not the only foreigner who had such contrasting exposures to the Soviet system.
