Sovietland—an English-language magazine published by the Soviet news agency TASS and intended as a cultural export for an English-speaking readership.23 With no apparent sense of irony, the magazine’s glossy pages were filled with articles such as “Abundance!” which described how Moscow’s department stores were now overflowing with supplies of food, not to mention gramophones, vacuum cleaners, electric stoves, and a cascade of consumer goods. New cafés were opening in Moscow where “payment was made by the honor system,” although in a period of universal shortages, exactly where such cafés were
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