Золото для индустриализации. "ТОРГСИН"

If you've read Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, you probably remember the Torgsin mirror shop on the Smolensky market in Moscow. In exchange for jewelry and currency, he sold "pink salmon", mitkali and chiffon, and other delicacies and elite consumer goods to Soviet citizens and foreigners. But did you know that in 1931-1935. 1,500 torgsins worked all over the country? The gold, silver, diamonds, dollars that Soviet people brought to Torgsin to escape starvation allowed the country's leadership to buy foreign equipment for Magnitka, Kuznetsk, Uralmash, Dneprostroy and other industrial giants of the emerging Soviet industry. In the interests of industrialization, Torgsin actually legalized currency prostitution, and in the pursuit of gold "beat" the omnipotent state security agencies. The reader will learn about what happened to the gold of the Russian Empire, who invented torgsins, what people bought in them and how much the Ford cost, about how the gold of the Spanish treasury ended up in the vaults of the State Bank in Moscow, what was the precious "harvest" collected by Stalin and many, many more. The author's goal was to tell about Torgsin simply and interestingly - so as to attract everyone who is interested in the history of the Fatherland.