If you have read Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita," then you probably remember the scene in the capital's Torgsin store, located at the very end of the Arbat near the Garden Ring. In exchange for jewelry and currency, the magnificent store sold Soviet citizens and foreigners "fat pink salmon," meatballs, chiffons and other fashionable consumer goods and delicacies. But did you know that in 1931-1935, one and a half thousand torgsins worked in the USSR? Gold, silver, diamonds, currency that Soviet people brought to Torgsin, fleeing hunger, allowed the country's leadership to buy foreign equipment for Magnitogorsk, Uralmash, Dneprostroy and other giants of the born Soviet industry. In the interests of industrialization, Torgsin actually legalized currency prostitution, and in pursuit of gold he outstripped the main Soviet exporters of grain, timber, oil, as well as the OGPU, which seized currency values ​ ​ from the population by force. The reader will learn about what happened to the gold of the Russian Empire, who came up with the bargains, how much the Ford cost, 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 Torgsin and much more. Elena Osokina - Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, author of works on the socio-economic history of the 1920-1930s.