State Food Commerce in the First Post-War Years (Based on the Materials of Leningrad)

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The history of post-war everyday life would be incomplete without a story about state commerce. Post-war commercial trade is associated by many with the film The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed. Not too well-fed post-war reality contrasts with a chic restaurant where operatives ambush Fox. Meanwhile, an expensive restaurant with music is not a figment of the imagination of the filmmakers, but part of post-war reality. State commerce is a special page in the history of Soviet trade, not the first and not the last attempt by the state to make money in a situation of commodity shortage. Under conditions of rationed supplies, people still had the opportunity to legally, without cards, buy industrial and food products at exorbitant prices. In Leningrad, trade at special prices became widespread from the middle of 1944. Shops opened in the city, night restaurants began to work. Despite the high prices, the turnover of commercial stores and restaurants grew rapidly. In addition to meeting the growing demand for goods, the emergence of commercial stores contributed to lower prices on the collective farm market.