In the beginning, before understanding what the ration cards were all about, people would bustle and jostle in front of bread factories. But then later, everything was scheduled,  certain block came one day. Each block of flats had its own food store. Ours was right here in the back. I would only go when I knew it was my turn, and I didn?t need to stand in a queue. But it wasn?t normal to have to buy everything at once. It happened once a month, but 5 kilos of sugar once a month is quite a large quantity, we didn?t know where to stock it anymore, we used 15-kg jars.

Only those who lived in town were allowed to buy in those food stores. Those who were passing through, or were working on a temporary basis could buy nothing in Bucharest, because every purchase was made based on the ID card, including meat or cold meats.

There was another place where we could buy food, the factory?s store, somewhere on the Tei Blvd. That was quite a good shop. We did some of the shopping there, together with 100 other people who were assigned to that shop. The same goods that were sold to these 100 people was also sold on the shop front to the whole population. Exactly the same goods. So, there were another 1,000 people at least that used to shop in the same place. But some people were not happy at all with the situation, that is with the fact that were another 100 people who shopped in ?their? shop, and made quite a lot of noise about it; so we were assigned to another store, but the 1,000-1,5000 didn?t accomplish mush with this because the shop started to be poorly supplied. That was such a stupid move. Instead of being content with the fact that you could find something, anything, and for a good price?not to mention that we were used to all the bad food that you could find on the market at that time; I remember once buying a 2 kg packet of Prague ham for Irina. I started to slice it when Irina came in; we had already bought soya bean ham. Irina looked at the ham I bought and said: you eat this! I want the good one, the one with soya.? (I. H., 29)

Using your own car to lay market goods in your stock is a normal thing. But to cover 20 or 30 kilometers for that is a bit?.