My dad had to drive 65 miles (by public transportation only with multiple stops) to get into one of these stores. You weren't allowed to buy over certain amount of groceries unless you have permission slip ("kartochka"). Permission slip specifies the number of children you have. And even with "kartochka" it wasn't that too much food you could buy anyway.

Also, as a child growing up mostly in outskirts of Moscow region (oblast), I don't remember even visiting one of these stores. I was about 20 y.o. (now 40) when I first saw a supermarket similar to this one in the town 65 miles from Moscow where I grew up.

Also, it doesn't mean everything was that bad, or we haven't had enough food on the table. Most of the food was unprocessed and simple, and the most was from farmers. For example, there was no to little cheese, but there was meat, and milk, and veggies. I have to admit that a large number of meat (especially chicken) was a humanitarian assistance (notorious "nozhki Busha" - Bush's chicken legs).

There were very few markets that looked like that, most of them heavily concentrated in the two biggest cities of Moscow and Leningrad. There were plenty of towns where even in the mid-to-late 90's people would have been surprised to see a market like this.