What is "tuzex"

Tuzex, during the period of communist rule in Czechoslovakia, was a network of shops in which it was possible to use hard currency or Tuzex vouchers to purchase foreign, mainly western luxury goods, unavailable at regular stores. The Czechoslovak koruna was not accepted. The name Tuzex is a contraction of tuzemský export (domestic export). The shops served to drain hard currency out of circulation.

Shops of this sort also existed in other communist states, for example Pewex shops in Poland and Intershops in the German Democratic Republic.