Poster: "Welcome to 'Beriozka' shops". USSR: Vneshtorgizdat, 1980s.

Poster: “Welcome to Beriozka Shops.” USSR: Vneshtorgizdat, 1980s. 58.8×41.9 cm. A small tear at the bottom of the poster. The poster is clean. “Beriozka” was a chain of branded retail stores in the USSR that sold food products and consumer goods for foreign currency (to foreigners) or for certificates, and later for checks from Vneshposyltorg and Vneshtorgbank (to Soviet overseas workers—diplomatic, military, and technical specialists, particularly specialists of Zarubezhstroy and their families). There was a network of Beriozka stores that accepted series “D” checks for servicing the diplomatic corps, as well as a network of shops and kiosks at Intourist hotels that accepted foreign currency (selling souvenirs, furs, food, drinks, and cigarettes). Stores in this retail chain existed in Moscow, Leningrad, the capitals of the union republics, as well as in major regional centers and some port and resort cities (in Volgograd, Vyborg, Izmail, Nakhodka, Novosibirsk, Novorossiysk, Sevastopol, Sochi, and Yalta). In V. Vysotsky’s song “A Trip to the City,” the visit of a naive provincial to the foreign currency store Beriozka is described: “... Why should I go back empty-handed? But then I came across the goods. — ‘What currency do you have?’ they ask. — ‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘it’s not dollars!’”