Daily life travel in the cult of tourism

The article analyses a story “A slightly sad story about the cheerful adventures of a Hitchhiker in the country of Tourismia” by D. Zhurlakov. The process of travel is presented in the work as everyday life; the most typical situations that any traveller encounters are satirically interpreted. The author characterizes main narrative features of the story, and makes a conclusion about the genre allusion to the utopias of the 18th century, but the external similarity is more aesthetic than philosophical – the problems raised by the author are much more modern. The article also analyses the plot of the story from the point of view of the most significant for the 20th century ideas about happiness. The country of Tourismia can be studied in the philosophical categories of J. Ortega y Gasset, G. Debord and J. Baudrillard. Analysis in the philosophical categories of consumer society seems to be the most legitimate, since it allows us to identify and characterize emblematic inaccuracies made by the author.