The concept of “soul ecology” through the prism of “fairy-tale tourism”: the regional cases of Russia

The article notes that the modern world is on the verge of environmental crisis. This is due to the moral and spiritual crisis of humanity and a consumer attitude to nature. Against this background, the public increasingly began to turn to the idea of soul ecology, or “protection of the soul from pollutions”. Expertly-organized tourism can educate a responsible person. Usually the ecology of the soul associated with eco-tourism. But the authors believe that a fairy-tale tourism can be also engaged in moral and spiritual upbringing with great success. The article analyzes the domestic experience of creating a fairy-tale tourism infrastructure, identifies strengths and weaknesses of this work in different regions of Russia, and presents the information about the possibility of fabulous tourism development in the framework of the project “Fairytale Map of Russia”. The authors study organizational aspect of the problem, and reveal the most effective methods of popularization of the fairy-tale direction of tourism and the proven ways of involving tourists in the fairy-tale environment. The article characterizes the factors negative affecting the fabulous tourism development. The authors found out that not all regions, identified in the project “Fairytale Map of Russia” and oriented to travel in a fairy tale, have managed to organize tourist flows. This happens mainly due to the small number of thematic objects and the inability to create routes, but also because of the lack of interactive programs. Special attention is paid to the state of fabulous infrastructure in Ufa, the capital Bashkiria. Ufa – small motherland of S. T. Aksakov, the author of the famous tale “The Scarlet flower”. This fact became the basis to include our city in the project “Fairytale Map of Russia” as “the house” of the scarlet flower. However, Ufa is one of the cities, having solitary monuments of fabulous characters who are unable to determine the prospects of development of regional fairy-tale tourism. In addition, Ufa has not yet engaged in the creation of interactive programs, providing a high level of interest in the fairy-tale tourism.