The development of trade during the Soviet era. Russian retail chains as a format of modern retail trade. The top of the consumption pyramid
Blogger germanych reports: After publishing his post about the elections in Soviet time I was surprised to learn that it was a revelation for many representatives of modern youth that in those days they were choosing from one candidate. It's funny, but what seems to me so obvious and familiar to many is like a window into the Looking Glass. Therefore, I decided to continue unhurried memories of those times. Moreover, it is better to remember with photographs in hand. So it is somehow clearer.
1.1959 Product department. Typical. If my vision does not fail me, the products on the counter are not very rich, to use euphemisms. And to put it bluntly and without embellishment, the counter is completely empty. True, it should be admitted that there is something hanging behind the seller's back. To be honest, I didn't understand what it was. Either decomposed meat carcasses, or something wrapped in oiled paper. Okay, let's assume that this is meat.
2.1964 Moscow. GUM. Gum ice cream has always been popular. And in 64th ...
3. ... and in 1980 ...
4. ... and in 1987.
But, as they say, ice cream is not the only one ...
5.1965 In Soviet times, the approach to design was very simple. There weren't a bunch of stupid names. Stores in all cities were called simply, but understandably: "Bread", "Milk", "Meat", "Fish". In this case, it is the “Grocery store”.
6. And here is the toy department. The store, therefore, is a manufactured goods store. All the same 1965. I remember that in 1987 a girl I knew — a saleswoman in the Dom Knigi store on Kalininsky — told me that she was always uncomfortable when foreigners froze in stunned eyes as she was calculating the cost of a purchase on the accounts. But that was 1987, and in 1965 no one was surprised by the abacus. The sports department is visible in the background. There are different chess, checkers, dominoes - a typical set. Well, bingo and games with dice and chips (some were very interesting). In the foreground is a child's rocking horse. I didn't have one.
7. The same year 1965. Selling apples on the street. Please pay attention to the packaging - a paper bag (the woman in the foreground is putting apples in it). Such packages of third-rate paper were all the way one of the most common types of Soviet packaging.
8.1966 Supermarket - Self-service department store. At the exit with purchases, it is not the cashier with the cash register who sits, but the saleswoman with the bills. The check was strung on a special awl (stands in front of the invoices). On the shelves is a typical set: something in packs (tea? Tobacco? Dry jelly?), Then cognac and some bottles in general, and on the horizon are traditional Soviet pyramids of canned fish.
9.1968 Progress is evident. Instead of bills - cash registers... There are shopping baskets - by the way, quite a nice design. In the lower left row, you can see a customer's hand with a carton of milk - such characteristic pyramids. In Moscow, these were of two types: red (25 kopecks) and blue (16 kopecks). They were distinguished by their fat content. On the shelves, as far as you can tell, there are traditional cans and bottles of sunflower oil (sort of). Interestingly, there are two sellers at the exit: the one checking the purchases and the cashier (her head peeks out over the right shoulder of the aunt-seller with a facial expression typical of a Soviet seller).
10.1972 Let's take a closer look at what was on the shelves. Sprats (by the way, they later became scarce), bottles of sunflower oil, some other canned fish, on the right - something like cans of condensed milk. There are a lot of cans. But there are very few names. Several types of canned fish, two types of milk, butter, leavened wort, what else?
11.1966 Something I did not understand what exactly the buyers were looking at.
12.1967 This is not Lenin's room. This is a department in the House of Books on Kalininsky. Today these shopping areas are packed with all kinds of books (on history, philosophy), and then - with portraits of Lenin and the Politburo.
13.1967 For children - plastic astronauts. Very affordable - only 70 kopecks apiece.
14. 1974 Typical grocery store. Again: a pyramid of canned fish, a bottle of champagne, a battery of green peas Globus (Hungarian, I think, or Bulgarian - I don't remember something already). Half-liter cans with something like grated beets or horseradish with beets, packs of cigarettes, a bottle of Armenian brandy. On the right (behind the scales) are empty flasks for selling juice. The juice was usually: tomato (10 kopecks a glass), plum (12 or 15, I don't remember already), apple (the same), grape (similar). Sometimes in Moscow there was a tangerine and an orange one (50 kopecks - wildly expensive). Next to such flasks, there was always a saucer with salt, which could be added to your glass of tomato juice with a spoon (taken from a glass of water) and stirred. I've always loved to have a glass of tomato juice.
15.1975 City Mirniy. On the left, as far as can be judged, the deposits of bagels, gingerbread and cookies - all in plastic bags. On the right are eternal canned fish and - at the bottom - 3-liter cans of canned cucumbers.
16. 1975 City Mirniy. General form store interior.
17.1979 Moscow. People are waiting for the end of their lunch break at the store. The showcase is decorated with a typical pictogram of the "Vegetables-Fruits" store. In the showcase itself, there are jars of jam. And, it seems, of one kind.
18.1980 Novosibirsk. General view of the supermarket. In the foreground are batteries of milk bottles. Further, in the metal mesh containers, there is something like canned fish deposits. In the background groceries - bags of flour and noodles. The general dull landscape is somewhat enlivened by the plastic pictograms of the departments. We must pay tribute to the designers there - the pictograms are quite understandable. Not like Microsoft Word icons.
19.1980 Novosibirsk. Manufactured goods. Furniture in the form of sofas and wardrobes. Further, the sports department (checkers, inflatable lifebuoys, billiards, dumbbells and various other trifles). Further down the stairs, there are televisions. In the background are partially empty shelves.
20. View of the same store from the side of the household electrical appliances department. In the sports department, life jackets and hockey helmets are distinguishable. In general, it was probably one of the best stores in Novosibirsk (I think so).
21.1980. Vegetable department. The line is watching the saleswoman tensely. In the foreground are green cucumbers, which appeared in stores in early spring (and then disappeared).
23 1981. Moscow. Typical store design. "Milk". On the right, a woman is rolling a wildly scarce imported stroller with "windows".
31. Especially spiritual people do not need fashionable shoes. But the women in this photo don't look very cheerful.
33. An almost sacred place is the meat department. "Communism is when every Soviet person will have a familiar butcher" (from a movie).
34. "Pork" - 1 ruble 90 kopecks per kilogram. Grandmothers can't believe their eyes. "Butcher, bitch, sold all the meat to the left!"
38. Phallic symbol. It is enough to look at the reverence with which the aunt holds this object to understand that in the USSR sausage was much more than just a food product.
40. Frozen hake is, of course, not a sausage, but you can also eat it. Although, of course, all this does not look very aesthetically pleasing.
41. Not a single sausage ... For a Soviet color TV, a Soviet person had to pay almost a salary for 4-6 months ("Electronics" costs 755 rubles).
Memories of Soviet times periodically visit everyone who was born during this period. And one of the aspects of the life of Soviet society that is of particular interest is, of course, the economy of that time, more precisely, trade. Let's remember how it was.
Moreover, it is better to remember with photographs in hand. So it is somehow clearer.
1.1959 Product department. Typical. If my vision does not fail me, the products on the counter are not very rich, to use euphemisms. And to put it bluntly and without embellishment, the counter is completely empty. True, it should be admitted that there is something hanging behind the seller's back. To be honest, I didn't understand what it was. Either decomposed meat carcasses, or something wrapped in oiled paper. Okay, let's assume that this is meat.
2.1964 Moscow. GUM. Gum ice cream has always been popular. And in 64th ...
3. ... and in 1980 ...
4. ... and in 1987.
But, as they say, ice cream is not the only one ...
5.1965 In Soviet times, the approach to design was very simple. There weren't a bunch of stupid names. Stores in all cities were called simply, but understandably: "Bread", "Milk", "Meat", "Fish". In this case, it is the “Grocery store”.
6. And here is the toy department. The store, therefore, is a manufactured goods store. All the same 1965. I remember that in 1987 a girl I knew — a saleswoman in the Dom Knigi store on Kalininsky — told me that she was always uncomfortable when foreigners froze in stunned eyes as she was calculating the cost of a purchase on the accounts. But that was 1987, and in 1965 no one was surprised by the abacus. The sports department is visible in the background. There are different chess, checkers, dominoes - a typical set. Well, bingo and games with dice and chips (some were very interesting). In the foreground is a child's rocking horse. I didn't have one.
7. The same year 1965. Selling apples on the street. Please pay attention to the packaging - a paper bag (the woman in the foreground is putting apples in it). Such packages of third-rate paper were all the way one of the most common types of Soviet packaging.
8.1966 Supermarket - Self-service department store. At the exit with purchases, it is not the cashier with the cash register who sits, but the saleswoman with the bills. The check was strung on a special awl (stands in front of the invoices). On the shelves is a typical set: something in packs (tea? Tobacco? Dry jelly?), Then cognac and some bottles in general, and on the horizon are traditional Soviet pyramids of canned fish.
9.1968 Progress is evident. Instead of bills - cash registers. There are shopping baskets - by the way, quite a nice design. In the lower left row, you can see a customer's hand with a carton of milk - such characteristic pyramids. In Moscow, these were of two types: red (25 kopecks) and blue (16 kopecks). They were distinguished by their fat content. On the shelves, as far as you can tell, there are traditional cans and bottles of sunflower oil (sort of). Interestingly, there are two sellers at the exit: the one checking the purchases and the cashier (her head peeks out over the right shoulder of the aunt-seller with a facial expression typical of a Soviet seller).
10.1972 Let's take a closer look at what was on the shelves. Sprats (by the way, they later became scarce), bottles of sunflower oil, some other canned fish, on the right - something like cans of condensed milk. There are a lot of cans. But there are very few names. Several types of canned fish, two types of milk, butter, leavened wort, what else?
11.1966 Something I did not understand what exactly the buyers were looking at.
12.1967 This is not Lenin's room. This is a department in the House of Books on Kalininsky. Today these shopping areas are packed with all kinds of books (on history, philosophy), and then - with portraits of Lenin and the Politburo.
13.1967 For children - plastic astronauts. Very affordable - only 70 kopecks apiece.
14. 1974 Typical grocery store. Again: a pyramid of canned fish, a bottle of champagne, a battery of green peas Globus (Hungarian, I think, or Bulgarian - I don't remember something already). Half-liter cans with something like grated beets or horseradish with beets, packs of cigarettes, a bottle of Armenian brandy. On the right (behind the scales) are empty flasks for selling juice. The juice was usually: tomato (10 kopecks a glass), plum (12 or 15, I don't remember already), apple (the same), grape (similar). Sometimes in Moscow there was a tangerine and an orange one (50 kopecks - wildly expensive). Next to such flasks, there was always a saucer with salt, which could be added to your glass of tomato juice with a spoon (taken from a glass of water) and stirred. I've always loved to have a glass of tomato juice.
15.1975 City Mirniy. On the left, as far as can be judged, the deposits of bagels, gingerbread and cookies - all in plastic bags. On the right are eternal canned fish and - at the bottom - 3-liter cans of canned cucumbers.
16. 1975 City Mirniy. General view of the interior of the store.
17.1979 Moscow. People are waiting for the end of their lunch break at the store. The showcase is decorated with a typical pictogram of the "Vegetables-Fruits" store. In the showcase itself, there are jars of jam. And, it seems, of one kind.
18.1980 Novosibirsk. General view of the supermarket. In the foreground are batteries of milk bottles. Further, in the metal mesh containers, there is something like canned fish deposits. In the background groceries - bags of flour and noodles. The general dull landscape is somewhat enlivened by the plastic pictograms of the departments. We must pay tribute to the designers there - the pictograms are quite understandable. Not like Microsoft Word icons.
19.1980 Novosibirsk. Manufactured goods. Furniture in the form of sofas and wardrobes. Further, the sports department (checkers, inflatable lifebuoys, billiards, dumbbells and various other trifles). Further down the stairs, there are televisions. In the background are partially empty shelves.
20. View of the same store from the side of the household electrical appliances department. In the sports department, life jackets and hockey helmets are distinguishable. In general, it was probably one of the best stores in Novosibirsk (I think so).
21.1980. Vegetable department. The line is watching the saleswoman tensely. In the foreground are green cucumbers, which appeared in stores in early spring (and then disappeared).
22.1980. Sausage. Krakowskaya, it must be.
23 1981. Moscow. Typical store design. "Milk". On the right, a woman is rolling a wildly scarce imported stroller with "windows".
24.1982. In the market, the Soviet people rested with their souls.
25.1983. Queue for shoes. Not otherwise, the imported boots were "thrown out".
26 1987. Queue for something.
27. Kvass saleswoman. People went for kvass with aluminum cans or three-liter cans.
28 1987. Electrical goods.
29. No comment.
30. Soviet underwear as it is. Without any colorful bourgeois packaging.
31. Especially spiritual people do not need fashionable shoes. But the women in this photo don't look very cheerful.
32. Shoes too ... But where to go? There is no other.
33. An almost sacred place is the meat department. "Communism is when every Soviet person will have a familiar butcher" (from a movie).
34. "Pork" - 1 ruble 90 kopecks per kilogram. Grandmothers can't believe their eyes. "Butcher, bitch, sold all the meat to the left!"
35. Soviet turn. What a tense look of people - "is it enough?"
36. “Now the meat will be brought. You will see, they will definitely bring him. "
37. "Eat meat!" Local brawl over the best piece.
38. Phallic symbol. It is enough to look at the reverence with which the aunt holds this object to understand that in the USSR sausage was much more than just a food product.
39. It is necessary to cut more pieces of sausage, which will then be instantly swept off the counter.
40. Frozen hake is, of course, not a sausage, but you can also eat it. Although, of course, all this does not look very aesthetically pleasing.
41. Not a single sausage ... For a Soviet color TV, a Soviet person had to pay almost a salary for 4-6 months ("Electronics" costs 755 rubles).
42. Vegetable department. In the foreground is a cart with some kind of rot. Moreover, it was assumed that someone could buy this rot.
43. The ineradicable antagonism between Soviet buyers and Soviet sellers. It is read in the man's eyes that he would gladly strangle the saleswoman. But it is not so easy to strangle such a saleswoman - Soviet trade hardened people. Soviet saleswomen knew how to deal with buyers. More than once I saw a flurry of indignation and attempts to riot in queues, but the result was always the same - the victory remained with such aunt-saleswoman.
44. One of the features of Sovok was the presence of a sophisticated system of benefits (all sorts of veterans, "prisoners of concentration camps", etc.). Various beneficiaries with red crusts in Soviet lines were hated almost as much as saleswomen. Look what a snout in a hat - not to "like everyone else" to take the assigned duck, he fusses with a red crust - apparently, pretends to be two ducks.
45. This photo is interesting not so much for the hake sold as for the packaging. Almost all purchases were wrapped in this brown tough paper in the USSR. In general, the darkest thing in Soviet trade was packaging, which, in fact, did not exist.
46. Another queue.
47. And more ...
48. And more ...
49. Suffering. No comments.
50. Whoever did not have time, he was late. Now spells won't help.
51. Queue to the dairy department.
52. "Our work is simple ..."
53. Queue to the wine department.
54.1991. Well, this is already the apotheosis. Finita ...
55. And this is a completely different line of people who dreamed of escaping from Sovok at least for an hour. And no spirituality.
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However, the bony hand of hunger and scarcity grabbed them by the throats so that Lenin had to step on the throats of even his fanatical supporters and declare NEP. But Stalin is in power, and by the beginning of the 30s he is returning the Soviet communists, so to speak, on the "true path" of public ownership of the means of production and everything else.
The fight against the private trader began around 1926-1927. In 1930, the share of private traders in trade fell to 5.6%, and in 1931 it practically disappeared. “If trade at the first stage of the NEP,” said Comrade Stalin at the January (1933) plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), “allowed the revival of capitalism and the functioning of the private capitalist sector in commodity circulation, then Soviet trade proceeds from the negation of both another. What is Soviet Trade? Soviet trade is trade without capitalists, big and small, trade without speculators, big and small. This is a special kind of trade, which until now history has not known and which is practiced only by us, the Bolsheviks, in the conditions of Soviet development "
As an inevitable consequence of this dubious "victory over the private trader" already in 1928-1929. a card trading system was created. It was caused by a severe shortage of many essential, primarily food, goods. By the end of 1929, the rationing system was extended to almost all food, and then to industrial goods, especially clothing and footwear. Instead of free purchase and sale of goods, stocking took place, which was carried out according to the so-called “fence documents” through closed distributors, closed workers 'cooperatives, and workers' supply departments. Each region had its own form, its own procedure for issuing all kinds of cards. Different categories of the population were established, for each category its own supply standards were determined. For absenteeism and leaving the enterprise, the worker was deprived of his card. There were special shops to which the best factory workshops were attached. So hunger and the distribution system became the most important factor obedience of citizens to authority. However, this already took place during the Civil War.
From Special Summary No. 2 INFO OGPU:
Factory "Red Shtampovshchik". At the rally devoted to the issues of the "Appeal of the Central Committee", out of 200 people voted for self-consolidation, only 12 people. Regarding shock work, one worker said: "You can work in shock, if you sing in shock, but you will be shod and dressed, but with a hungry belly and with a warrant in your pocket, you don't really bother."
Trumpark them. Konyashin. During a meeting of shock workers, one of the workers said: "What competition can there be when we are all hungry and work for nothing." The speech was greeted with applause from a part of the meeting.
On March 15, 1930, taking into account local excesses, the Central Committee of the Party in a letter to all Central Committees of the National Communist Parties, regional, regional, district and district committees of the Party "On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective farm movement" obliges local party organizations: "Prohibit the closure of markets, restore bazaars and not hinder the sale by peasants, including collective farmers, of their products on the market."
As you can see, in a fierce struggle with a private trader, in some places in Soviet cities they even closed traditional food markets, where peasants had been selling their products to the townspeople for thousands of years ...
The fight against the private trader was going on both in the city and in the countryside. It was necessary to attract significant forces of the repressive organs. The most large-scale action took place, of course, in the countryside, because the government decided not only to take away property from the strongest peasants, but also to liquidate the peasants themselves as independent owners, independent of the power. According to the doctor of historical sciences, the famous researcher of repression V.N. Zemskov, about 4 million people were dispossessed, of which 2.5 million were exiled in 1930-1940, during this period 600 thousand people died in exile.
In the May 1931 document of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Tsentrosoyuz it is said: "... Consumer cooperatives have forgotten that the displacement of the private trader and private trade does not mean the destruction of all trade, that, on the contrary, the displacement of private trade presupposes the all-round development of Soviet trade and the deployment of a network of cooperative and state trade organizations throughout the USSR." Well, of course, because 1931-1933. - these are years of terrible hunger with a multimillion death rate. The authorities had to say something about this, and decided to shift the blame on the negligent Soviet cooperators who could not replace private traders in the food trade.
The size of the food shortage in the country is evidenced by the facts of a sharp reduction by 1933 of the state stocks of food grain. On February 9, 1931, according to the USSR People's Commissar for Supply A.I. Mikoyan, there were 1,011 million poods of food bread on the balance sheet; in January 1933, their actual availability, according to the results of the inventory carried out by the Committee of Reserves at the STO of the USSR, amounted to 342 million poods, i.e. decreased by almost 3 times.
Famine forced the workers to go to the canteens with their whole families, otherwise they could not survive. But the atmosphere in the dining rooms was the same ...
From Special Bulletin No. 23 INFO OGPU on interruptions in the supply of industrial districts and cities:
"Moscow district. In the cafeteria of the Needle Factory, oatmeal made from poor-quality cereals is served daily. Due to malnutrition, there were 4 cases of fainting with female workers.
In the dining room of brick factories No. 21 and 26 (Podolsk district), a number of cases of food preparation from spoiled meat and rotten roach were noted.
Leningrad region. Factory "Renaissance". In the factory canteen, nearly 50 workers are left without meals almost every day. The throughput of the dining room is low due to the lack of dishes.
At the Shipyard (Stalingrad), there were cases when there was no bread in the shops for 2-3 days ... Tractor Plant (Stalingrad). There is nowhere to fix their shoes, many workers have to walk without shoes ... With the introduction of the distribution of white bread in Stalingrad, queues at distributors reached 1,000 people ... Catering in the canteens of the Central Recreation Centers of Astrakhan and Stalingrad continues to deteriorate ... Traktorostroy. The lunches delivered to the building are dirty cooked, especially the pea soup, which happens almost daily. "
Market relations greatly reduced by the state continued to exist in commercial trade, the Torgsin system and on the collective farm market. In 1929, "commercial" stores appeared in the USSR. " These were state-owned stores, in which goods were sold without cards, but at higher prices, which, on average, were 3-4 times higher than prices for food sold with cards. In 1932, "commercial" stores accounted for a tenth of the country's retail turnover.
In 1931 to the network commercial stores TORGSIN connected. In the hungry year of 1933, people brought 45 tons of pure gold and almost 1.5 tons of silver to the Torgsin network. With these funds, they purchased 235,000 tons of flour, 65,000 tons of cereals and rice, 25,000 tons of sugar. In 1933, groceries accounted for 80% of all goods sold in Torgsin, with cheap rye flour accounting for almost half of all sales. The hungry exchanged their last savings for bread. An analysis of Torgsin's prices shows that during the famine, the Bolsheviks sold food to their subordinate citizens at a much higher price than abroad. In 1933, Torgsin raised the price of bread and flour twice, but the demand for these products did not fall. This year in Torgsin bread among the goods had the highest foreign exchange profitability: in the first half of 1933, Torgsin's revenue in the bread / flour group exceeded their export price by more than 5 times! Because of the terrible famine, Torgsin in 1933 came out on top among all Soviet exporters in terms of gross foreign exchange earnings. People went to great lengths to survive. This is how the Bolsheviks proved in practice the truth of the well-known statement that at 300% there is no crime that capital would not dare to commit. And in this story, the profit was much more than 300%!
As you can see, the Stalinist government decided to make money on people instead of a private owner. In the absence of free competition, it could inflate prices almost indefinitely and did it completely shamelessly during the famine.
Sources:
1. IV Stalin, "Questions of Leninism", ed. 11th, p. 390.
2. Special summary No. 2 INFO OGPU on facts of a negative nature in the course of the implementation of the appeal of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated September 3, 1930 November 14, 1930
Is it true that in the Soviet Union in every store there were barrels of black caviar, and it cost a penny? What was difficult to get? Were there queues? Was it possible to get normal food without cronyism? Is it true that the bread tasted better?
I remember almost nothing about Soviet stores: I was too young, and my parents did not take me to them. From the 90s I only remember that I had to walk through the woods to the Moscow Ring Road for some bananas. Why I had to go after them, I still don’t understand, no one ate them anyway. I also remember that on Tverskaya there was a very cool SweetSvit Way store, where they sold foreign sweets by weight.
With the onset of Soviet rule, private shops quickly began to disappear, and instead a centralized distribution system appeared. In those years, food ration cards began to be introduced for citizens. They operated for several years after the revolution, then they were canceled, and then reintroduced in 1929.
Shops on Pyatnitskaya Street, 1922-1929 
Facade of a bookstore, 1920-1929 
In 1932, private trade was banned at the legislative level. And the products were distributed depending on what the person was doing. The workers and their families lived best of all: they belonged to the first category and received 800 grams of bread per day. The second category - civil servants, they received 300 g each. Disabled people and pensioners received 200 g each, while church servants and parasites did not receive anything at all.
At the shop window of the TSUM shoe department, 1934 
In 1935, life in the country more or less improved, there were a lot of goods, and the authorities decided to abolish the cards and establish free trade. Over the next six years (before the start of the Great patriotic war) the state independently introduced and regulated all retail prices.
Showcase, 1939 
Metropol and Aeroflot advertisement, 1939. Officially, by this year, Aeroflot had already existed for 7 years. During this time, he managed to save the Chelyuskinites and fly from Moscow to the United States through the North Pole. 
Bookstore "Metropol", 1939 
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, most of material resources redirected to military needs. In 1941, the authorities reintroduced cards for bread, cereals, sugar, butter, clothes and shoes. The largest portions were received by workers in military factories, mining and chemical industries. But even with rationing, groceries were often impossible to get.
The cards were valid until the end of 1947. This year, the country held a denomination and re-established open trade.
Showcase of the Eliseevsky grocery store, 1947. It was one of the most famous Soviet grocery stores. 
The store was founded back in 1901, then it was called "Eliseev's Store and Russian and Foreign Wine Cellars". The first few years after the revolution, it was closed, and in the 1920s it was reopened and renamed "Gastronome No. 1". There was a huge assortment of goods and rare goods often appeared, which was very unusual in the conditions of the post-war shortage. 
They say that it was from here that the tradition of stacking goods in a pyramid began. 
The grocery store, like all other stores, worked according to the rationing system in the war and post-war years. But in 1944, it also opened a commercial department, in which goods were sold for money. The prices here were sky-high, but the department still attracted a huge number of visitors. All this ended with the fact that in the 50s of the head commercial department grocery store was convicted of large amount unearned income earned by cheating buyers. 
At a tobacco showcase on Gorky Street, 1947 
Party organs were also involved in publishing and distributing books in the USSR. Before the press, all literature passed through the hands of censors, many works and authors were not allowed to print at all. But on the other hand, the books were very cheap, and in general reading among the people was very popular. At the window of the Moskva bookstore. 
At a showcase with oriental souvenirs, 1947 
Shop on Taganskaya Square, 1951. It was simply called "Products". In those years, the names were not particularly original, and most of the stores were called "Bread", "Milk", "Meat", "Fish" and so on. 
And here is a shot from the Mosovoshch store (or Mosovoshch, as it is written in the photo) 
GUM, a showcase of samples in the section for the sale of haberdashery goods without the help of a seller, 1954. In the 30s, the GUM building was going to be demolished, but then they changed their minds. In the early 50s, it was restored, and in 1953 GUM reopened to buyers. 
Kutuzovsky prospect, house 18. Showcase with crockery. The residential building with shops on the ground floor has been popularly called "Pink Department Store" since its construction. After opening, Pink Department Store was the most popular store in the area, with everything from coats to needles. Well, the dishes too. This is 1958. 
In the same place, a showcase with TVs. It seems that these are "Rubies", they just began to be produced in 1957. They did not become a scarce commodity because they cost several monthly salaries. Few could afford such a luxury. 
A radio store on Gorky Street, 1960 
In 1961, the authorities carried out another monetary reform. 10 rubles of the old model in value equaled one ruble of the new model, while its value in gold and dollar terms has fallen sharply. Because of this, prices for jewelry, imported products, and some domestic goods and products have skyrocketed.
Showcase of the "Diet Products" store on Gorky Street. "The liver of burbot and natural cod. Canned food in its own juice contains fish oil and vitamin D. They are recommended for nutrition in case of rickets, for increased nutrition in case of tuberculosis and to accelerate the healing of bone fractures." 
Showcase with cameras 
Showcase with a clock 
Shop "Ether" with TVs. Look at the prices. The average salary in the 60s was 80-90 rubles. 
Shop "Cheese" 
Showcase of the "Russian Wines" store on Gorky Street. Judging by the memories, the walls inside the store were painted with grape bunches, Elbrus and poplars in the Sotsart style, and the floor was strewn with sawdust. 
In conditions of a shortage of goods, people were greatly helped out by the collective farm markets. They were either covered pavilions or open rows of counters. Here they traded in meat, milk, vegetables, fruits, potatoes and canned food. Representatives of collective and state farms and ordinary people who grew crops at their dachas could trade in such markets. You had to pay for a trading place, and in return, the market directorate provided everything you needed - scales, trade inventory and all sorts of other little things. Private sellers set prices depending on demand, and it was customary to bargain here. Danilovsky collective farm market, 1959. 
The "Wanda" store on Petrovka, 1960s. In the 70s, this store became one of the main speculators in Moscow. In the doorway next to "Wanda" there was a women's toilet, in which speculators sold Polish lipstick, mascara, tights and perfume to women. 
Showcase "House of Toys" on Kutuzovsky Prospect, 1960. 
Shop window "Toy House", 1964-1972 
Bridal salon on Prospekt Mira, 1961 
Department store "Moscow", 1963 
It was the first store in the USSR designed according to the Western model. shopping center... Inside, advertisements were played on radio and television. 
The department store was opened as an experiment. Here, in addition to retail space there was an information and training center, a showroom for showing new clothing collections and lecture halls. 
Showcases of the department store "Moscow" in 1968 
Counter and showcase of the "Moscow" department store in the 70s 
Shop "Lyudmila", 1965. This is one of the branded stores of the Mosodezhda retail chain. Other stores in the chain were called "Moskvichka", "Lyudmila", "Tatiana" and "Ruslan", there were about 80 of them. 
Begovaya street, 1969 
Gorky street. Moscow showcases. Shop "Men's Fashion", 1970 
Grocery store "Novoarbatsky" 
In the favorite store of Vladimir Vysotsky on Malaya Gruzinskaya, 29 
The Berezka's deli is a chain of stores that sold food and other goods for foreign currency or "Vneshtorgbang checks". "Birch" was founded in 1964, and it existed until the 1990s. Photo taken in 1974. 
In the 70s, supermarkets began to open en masse in the USSR. They were located in typical rectangular buildings, and inside, towards the cash desks, there were long racks. The service system in Soviet supermarkets was quite complex. With the collected goods, it was necessary to come to the department, the seller weighed and counted everything, and then wrote the price to the buyer on a piece of paper. Then with this paper one had to go to the cashier and pay for everything. And then, with a check from the cash register, the buyer returned to the first department and took the purchase. Supermarket in Lyublino, 1974 
Shop in Tushino, 1974 
Grocery store on Dimitrov street, 1974 
"House of Toys", 1975. It was this year that the creator of "What? Where? When?" Vladimir Voroshilov bought the first spinning top here. 
Men's coats in GUM, 1975 
In the 70s, the turnover in the country grew rapidly, and new stores were opening everywhere. In particular, these are new supermarkets and department stores, shops with the names "Everything for Women", "Everything for Men" and "Everything for Home". Between 1961 and 1975, the number of retail space doubled. New trade and cash register equipment appears.
Shop "Orbita" 
Interior of the "Ocean" store in Ostankino, 1977
Voentorg on Kalinin Avenue - the country's main military department store, 1979 
Shop "Tick-tock", 1982 
Shop "Canned food", 1982 
TSUM 
GUM 
GUM, a showcase of a grocery store, 1984 
Department store in the village of Vostochny, 1985 
GUM showcase, 1985 
Stall with stockings, 1986
Department store "Detsky Mir", 1986 
House of pedbooks on Pushkinskaya, 1986 
Passage of the Art Theater (Kamergersky Lane), 1986 
At the showcase "Children's World", 1987 
"Children's world", 1987 
During the perestroika period, the deficit began to grow in the country again. This was the result of unsuccessful and inconsistent reforms. For example, in 1987 the authorities lifted the state monopoly on foreign trade, and then many enterprises began to send their goods abroad, earning much more on this than if they were bought by Soviet citizens.
Shop "Diet", 1987-1989 
Showcase on Arbat 
Shop "Melody", 1989. It was located at 22 Novy Arbat (formerly Kalinin Avenue), next to the Oktyabr cinema. Records, reels and cassettes were sold here. In those years, Melodiya stores were called “Houses of Record”, there were 18 of them in the Soviet Union, but the company's products could be bought not only there. Plates were sold more simply in kiosks "Soyuzpechat", and even earlier it was fashionable to order records by mail. 
Department store "Moskovsky" 
Kiosks on Kolkhoznaya Square, 1990 
At the box office in "Children's World", 1991 
