Torgsin(2017)

Torgsin is a Russian historical series set in 1934, during a peculiar moment of Soviet stability between the devastating famine of 1932–33 and the coming Great Terror. The USSR operates state-run shops called Torgsins, where foreigners and wealthy Soviet citizens trade gold, jewels, and hard currency for luxury goods and imported delicacies unavailable elsewhere. These oases of abundance become crossroads of desperation and desire. While the privileged exchange valuables for fine foods, the desperate—the hungry, the "disenfranchised," those stripped of ration cards—sell their last possessions just to survive. Against this backdrop of hidden hunger and official prosperity, ordinary people navigate a system designed to extract wealth from its own citizens. Torgsin captures a nation in transition, where survival and status collide in the aisles of these peculiar shops.