Back to the USSR

August 22, 2022

One of the most popular scenes in The Master and Margarita is in chapter 27, The Last Adventures of Koroviev and Behemoth, in which Woland's two helpers set the Moscow department store Torgsin in turmoil.

This scene is becoming very topical again, as many well-known brand names are harder to find in Russia due to Western sanctions following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Just last week, shoppers flocked to H&M stores as the Swedish clothing retailer briefly reopened its doors for a final inventory sale before leaving the country for good.

And so Russia will now revive the Soviet-era practice of duty-free shopping for foreign diplomats, allowing them to buy goods that are no longer imported into Russia. The government order to do so was issued in late July 2022. The stores could open in Moscow and St. Petersburg shortly after the law goes into effect on August 27, and they will accept payments in dollars and euros.

Sergey Smirnov, the editor-in-chief of the Russian media magazine Mediazona said: «All the way back to the USSR!»  And he is right, because with this practice we are once again in the policy of the beryozka shops for the bureaucratic elite, which Bulgakov denounced in chapter 27 of The Master and Margarita.

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Beryozka

Beryozka in the Soviet Union