Authors

Discussion

There was a range of geriatric, social, and healthcare services available to older age people in the late Soviet Union. These included geriatric consultation offices, dispensaries, patronage nursing, as well as the development of health groups and zones of health. A diversity of services represented both curative and preventative forms of healthcare. In this paper I examine the zone of health in Baku which incorporated a socialist prophylactic approach to healthcare, that is, it combined rest, exercise, and a generally healthy lifestyle as part of its remit. 

Soviet scientists advocated exercise and an active lifestyle for older people to restore and prolong their health. Not only did the Baku zone of rest for older people foreground the importance of a culture of healthy living for older people, but its location also underlined the importance of nature, the environment and phytotherapy as part of the therapeutic process in the zone of health.

In this paper I argue that the role of preventative healthcare, largely through exercise, remained important in the late Soviet period and continued to inform thinking around healthy ageing.