Torgsin

At first, Torgsin had only a few stores in large cities that sold antiques to foreign tourists. However, in 1931, Soviet citizens were allowed to buy goods in Torgsin stores for foreign currency, gold, silver, and precious stones. During the famine of 1932-1933, people were forced to exchange their savings for food. In 1933, food products accounted for 80% of all goods sold in Torgsin, with cheap rye flour accounting for almost half of all sales. At the same time, retail prices for food were on average three times higher than for large-scale wholesale sales abroad. The quality of goods and service was low, which was represented by the sale of spoiled products and very long queues. That year, Torgsin received 45 tons of pure gold and almost 2 tons of silver from the population. From 1931 to 1936, Torgsin collected the equivalent of 222 tons of pure gold, 70% of which was obtained from Soviet citizens. Gold was accepted in all forms: ingots, scrap, coins, jewelry, and works of art. Gold items were often broken or disassembled during evaluation, and its actual value was not taken into account. There were also cases of abuse among staff, such as short-weighting and short-measuring of customers, theft, underestimation of the actual weight of precious metals and their fineness. Prices for food products were often greatly inflated. For example, the price of flour was three times higher than world prices. There was also a large price gap for other goods.

Torgsin's trade offices were scattered throughout the country. As of January 1, 1934, their total number was 1,477 outlets. That same year, citizens' interest in Torgsin's goods dropped significantly due to an improvement in the food situation, and the number of offices began to decrease significantly until Torgsin's liquidation in 1936.

The Torgsin collection of shops, among other things, also offered porcelain products (tableware, etc.), produced at several factories, and usually marked with the Torgsin logo (the logo/brand was usually placed on the bottom of the product).

Moscow

On Arbat Street, No. 50-52, there is a building with the Smolensky grocery store (or Gastronom No. 2; former Torgsin store), now also a grocery store. One of the episodes of the novel "The Master And Margarita" is set here. Before the October Revolution, Ignatiy Aleksandrovich Zverev's restaurant and the shops of the merchant Troilin were located here.

In 1928, according to the design of the architect V.K. Oltarzhevsky, on the site of the demolished buildings, with a significant indentation from the former red line of the street, a house was built for the cooperative "Moscow Association". The building had 5 floors, the corner part was decorated with a balcony located above a three-story semicircular bay window, and ended with a high pylon with a round window and a pyramidal attic. However, already during the early 1930s, the house was rebuilt by the architect V.M. Mayat: he built on the 6th floor, made the tower faceted and raised it to the full height of the former attic. Large chopped inscriptions reading "Torgsin Department Store" were carved along the ends of the pylons and above the entrance vestibule.