The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-11-12
The New Russia, No. =
SHOPPING FOR
RUSSIANS LIKE
BIG GAME HUNT
One Never Can Tell lust
How Much Luck He
viii Have.
BY JULIA BLANSHARD,
StaH Writer for NEA Service and The
Times, Sent TO Soviet Russia Especially
for This Series


STAFF Writer for MA Service and The
Times, Sent 10 Soviet Russia Especially
for This Series
Copyright, 1891. NEA Service. Incl
Shopping in Moscow has the same
sporting element Of chance as big
game hunting.
If you lived there you never could
tell what you we're going to bag.
What the stores have stocked to-
day may be gone tomorrow and
what you have looked for in vain
for six months may be in the stores
today.
If 1t is books or periodicals you
want, almost every other store
along Kuznetsky Most and Tvers-
kaya and other main streets is
book shop. Every fifth or sixth cor
ner has kiosk (stalD selling read
ing matter. Every phase of the
Five-Year Plan is dramatized and
available in reading form.
II 1t is lipstick, rouge or other
cosmetics, you can probably get
whatever you want. You may have
an aversion to the inferior Russian
brands, but the Soviet trust puts out
a full line, and that's all there is.
If it is q pair of A. No. skis and
skiing shoes you crave, you can get
them or about 20 rubles $50 in a
sport shop, for the Soviet state con-
siders sports essential to young Rus
sia's health, so sports equipment is
rated a necessity.
But, should you want thermom-
eter, hot water bottle, sheets, a
rain coat, pair of scissors, cook
ing stove, a typewriter, a bed or
many other fundamental articles,
you are out of luck. No store has
these to date. The government fac
tories producing them are still sup
plying institutions.
You may borrow them or buy
them from an individual, but the
chances are you just will do with
out. =.
Each Of Moscow's ten districts
has its blocks of stores. These dis
trict stores repeat the foods on sale
on the Tverskaya and Kuznetsky
mostly because practically all goods
now are produced by the govern
ment trusts and the stores are gov
eminent outlets and uniformly
stocked.
Prices Are Standardized
The same articles cost the same
standardized price in every Moscow
store.
In any shopping center, you will
pass about the following kinds Of
stores: Book shops, sweet shops, a
sports good house, an antique shop,
an office supply store, liquor store |
(only bottled goods sold here, a
Chinese laundry (half price for
laundry if you bring your own
soap, an art store, big department
store, dry cleaning establishment,
tailor shop, an opticians Office, a
radio store, a shop to pleat and
hemstitch materials, toy shop, a
photographer studio, a peasant
ware shop a undertaker'S window
displaying a grewsome red coffin.
Two Kinds of Stores
There are two kinds of depart
ment stores, one rather expensive |
and the other inexpensive where |
workers buy clothes and other |
necessities on coupons on their food |
cards, physical laborers rating more |
than intellectual workers.
s There is one huge, handsome de-
partment store where no one can
trade but workers Of the G. P. U.
,(the Soviet secret service).
In addition, there is we'll stocked |
ANTIQUE and general store, called |
Torgsin, where only foreign money |
is accepted, hence only foreigners
trade. The big hotels run branches
of Torgsin in their lobbies.
Newest are the Udarnik shops. |
These are fancy goods stores where |
only those can trade who are mem |
bers of the shock brigadeS, as work
ers are called who volunteer to
speed up the work in their fac
tories, mills, farms.
Sex Equality Obvious
In the first store I entered ran |
into a queue at the shoe counter.
Fathers and mothers were shopping |
for their children.
Sex equality is obvious in the way |
Russian fathers or mothers shop, |
depending on which parent has his |
day of rest when the occasion |
arises.
In Torgsin, the foreign-money
store, saw antique ikons that any
collector would value, jewels left !
from czarist days, fine china, old |
rugs that are priceless, new govern
ment produced calico, wooden suits, |
fine fur coats, fur boots, jackets,
table linen, cutlery, all kinds of |
food, fine wines, fine cigarettes, in
laid and painted boxes, samovars,
almost anything tourists would like.
The shaved-headed Tovarish
(comrade) in charge of the store es-
timated that during the summer
tourist season the government sold |
$4,000 worth daily at Torgsin.
NEXT-Health in Soviet Russia. |
Free government hospitals for |
everybody, vacation with pay for
working mothers both before and
after childbirth. ForcefuI mea-
sures to safeguard the health of
children, compulsory health educa-
ton for all.
VALUES SPOUSE AT SIS
New YORK Man. Sued for Divorce