Portable pasts: guided tours and the reframing of communism for global tourism

This article examines how, almost four decades after the regime change, communist histories are translated into guided tour experiences across post-socialist cities. The analysis draws on participatory observations of twelve communist-themed tours conducted in seven European capitals (Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, Belgrade and Tirana), complemented by interviews with tour guides and operators. The findings identify four recurring mechanisms through which guides structure communist tourism experiences: flexible spatial staging of historical narratives, personal testimony as a source of experiential authenticity, humour as a form of affective framing, and Cold War references as a glocalisation tool. Together, these mechanisms make communist pasts visible, credible, emotionally approachable and intelligible to international audiences. Moving beyond commodification debates that long dominated the field, the paper points towards the role of guided tours as active sites of heritage mediation through which the boundaries of what counts as communist heritage are negotiated and expanded. In doing so, the study contributes to tourism scholarship by demonstrating how difficult pasts are assembled, communicated, and circulated through contemporary tourism encounters.