Tag #113299 - Interview #92445 (David Levin)

In Leningrad we lived very poor. My parents worked very much, especially mother. She was a cashier in Leningrad House of Selling for a long while, and also she’s been working for Torgsin [10]. Those Torgsin stores were organized in middle 1920s when the Soviet authorities decided to take out gold, silver and jewelry, but legally, not due to repressions, so people came and got food instead of their gold. Mother worked there, and that was a great support. In those times it was nothing to eat, there was a few of food in whole country. There were no rich people, and if somebody war richer than others, he hide his treasures. And in Torgsin they gave ratios, and that was a big business. The ratio included the piece of sausage, the piece of cheese, some butter, and some sugar. That was a holiday to get a ratio. I know all that because I helped my mother to carry the packages. All Torgsin employees got ratios in the boxes. That was such help! Later mother worked in the famous shoe store on Nevsky Avenue, 11, between streets of Gogol and Gertzen [11]. And in front of it there was a ‘Death to husbands’ – the stockinet store [famous city shop].