Smuggling goods under socialism

Shoes were cheap in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The Salamander brand meant something, in conversion, a pair of these shoes could be purchased for 300 CZK. But it had one big drawback. “For the trip to the GDR, every citizen could officially exchange 80 East German marks at the exchange office, children half. But Salamander shoes cost over 100 marks, so people did not legally import them across the border at that time,” recalls former customs officer Pavel Strnad, who served at the Boží Dar – Oberwiesenthal border crossing.

In totality, trips abroad were rare. They saved money for shopping. People looked forward to them all the more. “I remember how I couldn’t even sleep when we went shopping in the GDR,” recalls Jana Kostková from Karlovy Vary, adding that they always knew what could be bought cheaply outside. In addition to shoes and children’s clothes, curtains, plastic tableware (you certainly remember the scene with the spoons from the popular Beds), but also various types of food, toys and electronics. However, the money exchanged (80 marks per person) did not allow for much, almost everyone took extra money that they got on the black market to buy what they wanted. And how to transport this black money through the strict controls at the borders, he had already figured out. “My mom was perfect. For example, she squeezed out toothpaste or ointment and hid extra stamps in the tube,” says Jana. Illegal money was also smuggled in socks and shoes, women in bras, or in double-sided purses and bags.

Salamander leather boots were available at every shoe store. All you had to do was choose. After paying, you left with a smile on your face and the feeling that you really had a treasure. “The old worn ones were taken on the tour, they were thrown away and exchanged for new ones,” Jana Kostková explains the practices at the time. But the customs officers were not stupid, so they often let you take off your shoes and confiscated your shoes at the border on the way back home. “I saw how people’s dreams were shattered and they drove home from the border with plastic bags on their legs,” recalls Bohuslav Hubička, former bus driver of the regular Karlovy Vary – Karl Marx Stadt (today’s Chemnitz) line. There was a time-honored method for sneaking in new shoes. They had to be worn out a little, greased a little, and then it worked almost one hundred percent. The situation was simpler when it came to children’s clothing, the import of which was prohibited in the 1970s. And so more than one child went shopping in three T-shirts and two pairs of pants. The truth is that customs officials didn’t really look at children, so this trick almost always worked. People put the curtains under the covers on the bus seats.

You got a stamp in your passport at the border while making your dream purchase. A customs declaration had to be filled out on the return stating what you bought. “If two adults were traveling, they could buy for 160 marks, but that certainly did not mean that they could buy one shoe for 120 marks and other goods for 40 marks. It was strictly given that everyone could buy with their 80 marks,” explains former customs officer Strnad. So people persuaded the salesmen in the GDR to issue them a receipt for the lower price, which they attached to the customs declaration. “It was always quite an adventure when the customs officers would go through the bus and check everything and randomly invite two or three people to the office for a personal inspection. When the bus door closed and it left the border, everyone breathed a sigh of relief,” concludes Jana Kostková.

If you went shopping with your own car, then you risked a random inspection. “Always every fifth car stopped and the driver had to unload everything. We examined the entire trunk, the space behind the seats and under the seats. It was just like that at the time,” Strnad recounts.

At that time, not only Czechoslovakia suffered from a lack of goods, but the entire Eastern bloc. Only the things that people lacked were different, so they always got them somehow thanks to their ingenuity. In this way, goods were also smuggled out of our country.

In Bulgaria, nylon underwear and shirts could be sold profitably, and it was safest to transfer them to the body. Cigarettes were smuggled into Romania again. “The most popular brand in the 1980s were Kent golds, they went crazy. For one cardboard box, three people could travel by train from the Hungarian border to the sea. Instead of a ticket, you gave the conductor a cardboard box,” recalls Eva Holakovská from Prague, who traveled to Romania several times in this way with a friend. From the trips from Hungary, we again brought gramophone records of groups that were not available here. There, they tasted langoustine for the first time in their lives, and after returning home they enjoyed the imported langoustine.