Trading on borrowed time: shopping behind the iron curtain

Three loaves of bread in a window, cans of hairspray, a trailer-load of carrots ... David Hlynsky’s photos show that the dying days of eastern bloc communism didn’t offer much for consumers except visions of Marxist austerity

Photographs of shops in eastern Europe a quarter of a century ago have the quirky appeal of some kind of communist pop art. For the 21st-century British viewer accustomed to endless consumer goods and relentless advertising, they are likely to look charming and innocent, even idyllic. Here is the high street purged and purified: shops that sell just one thing, and tell you what it is with minimalist simplicity. A picture of a ham in what otherwise looks like a domestic window announces a ham-seller. A Moscow toy shop has only a handful of simple, plastic toys in the window. Another shop appears to sell nothing but washing powder. Does the Czech window with a picture of a rabbit seen through a telescopic sight advertise rabbits, rifles or both?

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