Lot #0018: Vintage & Rare USSR Beriozka - Indigenous Yupik Polar Bear Carving A

Vintage & Rare USSR Beriozka - Indigenous Yupik Polar Bear Carving. approx 3 x 3 inchesUSSR - Russian Indigenous Yupik Eskimo People carving Siberian Yupik's, or Yuit's, are a Yupik Eskimo people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far northeast of the Russian Federation and on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. They speak Central Siberian Yupik, a Yupik language of the Eskimo Aleut family of languages.Beriozka (founded in the USSR 1964) was the overall name applied to two chains of state-run retail stores in the Russian SFSR that sold goods in exchange for foreign currency. Beryozka sold luxury goods such as chocolate and caviar that were generally unavailable in traditional Soviet markets and shops Beriozka stores were opened in 1964. Their predecessors were Torgsin stores of the 1930s and the highly ineffective Vneshposyltorg departments of the large Soviet department stores (e.g. State Universal Store) that allowed catalog mail order from abroad by customers paying in hard currency.Beriozka stores became obsolete in the early 1990s when conversion of rubles into foreign currency was allowed. The stores were privatized and in the mid-1990s most were closed as uncompetitive.. Come to pickup at Category A time-slot.