Intourist was founded on April 12, 1929, as the "All-Russian Joint-Stock Company for the Acceptance of Foreign Tourists" (Russian: Всероссийское акционерное общество по приему иностранных туристов ВАО «Интурист»).

[5] Things presumably went along as planned: "In the late Stalin era, the number of foreigners visiting the Soviet Union dropped to nearly zero" as state officials actively discouraged travellers.

Hazanov propounds that the Soviet state apparatchiks at Intourist had a "commitment to authoritarianism and social discipline as an instrument of geopolitical resistance."

It was "charged with obtaining hard currency to be used for imports of machinery that would help make the Soviet Union independent of global markets.

[6] Special note is taken in Hazanov's thesis of the 1957 Moscow Youth Festival, the 1959 Sokolniki Exhibition, and the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and he seems to accept the school of thought, "popularized by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman’s paeans to globalization, ... that international exchange is the handmaiden of liberalization and erosion of authoritarian regimes", by which means ultimately Intourist can be seen as an unwitting cuckoo in the Soviet nest.

[7] In 1990, Intourist (as the exclusive travel agency in the Soviet Union)[3] held a dominant position in the market with 110 hotels and handled 2 million foreign tourists per year.

"[14] Quaker-founded Goodwill Holidays helped sell Intourbureau's competing offerings, which included use of hotels owned by the Soviet Central Council of Tourism and Excursions.

[15] Despite the name Intourist having a strong link to service "as friendly as wardens at the state pen",[14] attempts have been made to be even better than the (prior) competitor, Intourbureau in the eyes of "a hesitant traveling public.