ABSTRACT
Soviet industry and trade aimed to offer its customers much more than was necessary for the satisfaction of basic human needs. The whole of the Soviet Union's material culture and all its institutions of public catering were created in a highly conscious manner. Every decision was made at the highest levels of administration by the Peoples Commissars and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and often confirmed by Stalin personally. New department stores, luxury food stores and first-class restaurants were all visible symbols of the spirit of the 1930s in Stalin's Russia. They can be compared with the most renowned building project of the times, the building of the Moscow metro, or subway. The Moscow metro, with its highly decorated underground stations, became an important part of Soviet popular mythology. Moscow, as capital of the Soviet Union, gained the task of representing in a condensed form the whole bright future of socialism.
