A visit to a Soviet Moscow neighbourhood department store, 1960

From the Soviet Press, June 1960:

THE DEPARTMENT store in Maryita Roshcha, which was once a run-down section in an outlying part of Moscow, has been growing with the neighborhood. Maryina Roshcha in the last few years has mushroomed with new houses, schools, clubs and shops.

Look at the attractive window display of the department store and it is apparent that the Soviet purchaser has more goods to buy and more money to buy with than was true even a few months ago. The quantity of goods on the shelves and the buyers purchasing power have both been rising steadily. Last year 10,000 customers a day made purchases at the Maryina Roshcha store. Now the figure is 15,000.

This is a good sized store, although it isn't large by comparison with the huge ones in the center of Moscow. It carries almost everything you might want to buy, however—neckties, TV sets, perfumes, shoes, motorcycles, clothing, toys and so forth.

Practically everything you might want from toys to television sets to trousseaus

The store has a large dry goods department with silks, woolens and cottons in all colors and for all purposes. Two years ago the daily yard goods sales were 600 yards; today they are 6000 yards. Alexander Tsvetkov, the manager, explains the tenfold rise by the store's greater supply and larger assortment.

Two years ago the store had a daily sale of 600 yards of fabric. Now it sells 6,000.

"Now," he says, "we can satisfy practically all our customers, but we have to keep enlarging our assortment all the time to meet demand."

This is true of all the departments. Not long ago the shoe department thought it was doing very well when it had 50 different shoe styles on sale. Today it has twice the number and has to keep adding new models. Shoes are a steady seller, one out of every ten customers walks out of the store with a pair of shoes or slippers. The demand for shoes made of synthetic materials is particularly heavy. They are as good-looking, light and comfortable as leather footwear and have the added advantage of costing much less.

Every tenth customer coming into the store walks out with a new pair of quality shoes

The ready-to-wear men's and women's clothing departments are always busy. Suits and coats made of locally woven fabrics—the trade names are "triko," "udarnik" and "zhatka"— are especially popular. The store used to offer about 30 different styles in men's suits, now it has 100 models for sale.

The store sells the latest in cameras, radio and TV sets and record players. The best sellers are the new Zarya and Rubin TV's and the radio-phonograph console Belarus. Placed end to end the store's counters, piled high with goods of all types and description, would stretch for a third of a mile.

Memorable occasion. First grader Seryozha Baranov tries on his first grown-up coat. The

most popular of the large variety carried by the store are made of locally woven fabrics.