Russian Blog
This is a blog by JustRussian about learning Russian. You will find useful tips for learning Russian, Russian courses available in London, information about Russian culture and links to websites with information for students of Russian.
10 facts about shopping in Moscow
By Vlada 30 June 08
More stories from a Russian teacher in London, or things you may be interested to know but won’t learn in a Russian course.
Russians love to shop, and that’s a fact. I am the first to confess that a bit of retail therapy can take away even the occasional Russian gloom and thoughts of a failed life, traditional for any Russian intellectual (see Chekhov and others). I know it’s very shallow but I can tell you why we love shopping: anyone over the age of 30 could not do it until quite recently! So we are now trying to make up for lost time. We spent our young years making our own clothes, or ordering them made-to-measure (I know it sounds chic to an English ear, but doing it in Soviet tailor shops was no fun at all!), and wearing the wrong size/colour shoes because you were lucky to get decent ones even in the wrong size! We weren’t allowed to travel either, to do the shopping abroad. As a result, all the shopping centres in the world (Milan and Paris are favourites) you can see crowds of enthusiastic Russian consumers, buying whole wardrobes. The longed-for and deserved opportunity to go shopping has finally come our way! And yet:
Fact 1: Moscow is NOT a shopping destination. The culture of western-style shops is only developing, and shopping is much less fun than in the West. So if shopping for clothes is a priority on your holiday list, I wouldn’t advise going to Russia!
Fact 2. Shopping for food is becoming more and more similar to the West. Only a few years ago, we had to run around a hundred different small shops to get different kinds of groceries (shops used to be specialised in a very old-fashioned way). Now we have big supermarket chains with different price levels: the cheapest ones are called “Pyaterochka” (“A Fiver”) and “Kopeika” (a “Kopeck”, a penny); middle-range ones are “Perekrestok” (“Cross-roads”), “Billa” and “Spar” (both foreign brands); an expensive one is “Sedmoi Kontinent” (“The Seventh Continent”). The most expensive supermarket in Moscow is called “Azbuka Vkusa” (“The A to Z of Taste”), and it’s a kind of shop where rich people send their chauffers with a shopping list and where one can get even the most exotic foods: fresh lobsters (bearing in mind that Moscow is thousands of miles away from where those lobsters are caught), authentic dishes from different cuisines of the world, all possible varieties of French cheeses etc. All the simplest foods cost 3-4 times more than in other shops, and it always smells of freshly baked bread and is pleasantly empty.
Fact 3. You can now buy absolutely anything in supermarkets, but in the last six months the prices of food went up by about 30-40%, and people are rather worried by that. With the “bread line” income in Moscow estimated as 8.5 thousand roubles (£170) per month, some people struggle to make ends meet. In Soviet times, of course, we had the opposite picture – people had enough money to buy food, and the prices were very low, but you couldn’t buy much! Only the simple basic groceries were easily available. So it’s never ideal…
Fact 4. The foods that are still significantly cheaper than in the West are of course vodka (£2-6 per bottle, depending on the kind) and caviar, but black caviar goes up in price every year and now costs about £50 for a small can (10 year ago it was £5) and there is a limit on its production because sturgeon has become an endangered species. Red caviar is still plentiful and quite cheap but it’s not as nice!
Fact 5. Shopping for clothes is a bit of a problem. On the one hand, big shopping malls out of the centre offer a rather dull range of not very good quality clothes at affordable prices. On the other hand, fashion boutiques in the centre, such as the famous GUM (“the State Department Shop”) in Red Square or all the shops in Tverskaya Street are incredibly expensive and exist for tourists and very rich people. They offer endless designer clothes, jewellery and Swiss watches, and look very empty. Being a Muscovite, I haven’t been to the GUM for 12 years…
Fact 6. Shopping for shoes and bags is a pleasure but you’ll have to go out of the centre into big shopping malls where ordinary Russians shop, and speaking Russian is a must (that’s where your Russian lessons will come in handy!). Shoes and bags are mostly Italian or made in Russia using Italian designs and are much more interesting than what one can find in London in high street shops. Shoe prices are about the same as in London, and a good quality Italian leather bag costs £100-150 depending on the size.
Fact 7. Almost all the big chain high street Western shops such as Marks and Spencer, Next, Zara, Monsoon and others are now present in Russia but their contents are completely different from their English counterparts. The prices there are a bit higher than in England and the choice of things is a bit disappointing.
Fact 8. Apologies to the anti-fur activists, but every Russian wears at least something made of fur. If you’d like a Russian souvenir for cold weather, then a hat made of rabbit costs about £40 (nice and fluffy but not durable, so will last only a couple of years), ottar –about £80, mink – £120-150 (the latter two will last for a long time). A long mink fur coat costs from 2.5 to 5 thousand pounds, a short one – 1-2.5 thousand pounds. Fur items are mainly made in Greece, Italy, and surprisingly, Russia! The same rule applies there – prices in the boutiques in the centre are very different from the ones in the “common” shops in the outskirts.
Fact 9. What are the traditional Russian souvenirs to take home? Matreshka dolls – the ones consisting of several little dolls hidden in one, you can get them in different sizes in most gift shops and even bookshops. Russian crafts: brightly painted lacquered boxes for storing jewellery and brightly coloured wooden dishes and plates that can actually be used for eating out of, as well as for decoration. Thin woollen scarves made in Pavlov Posad are, I think, very pretty and last forever (I have one that’s 15 years old, and it still looks great!) Golden jewellery is not very expensive in Russia (unless you go to one of the shops in Tverskaya street in Moscow!). Traditional Russian gold is slightly rose coloured, rather than being purely yellow, the choice of jewellery is large and some things are very pretty.
Fact 10. And finally, specially for students of Russian, the biggest shop for books and textbooks is called “Biblio-Globus” in Lubyanka (follow the signs from Lubyanka tube station, it’s 3 min walk) It has a large choice of books in Russian and other languages, a big section on learning Russian as a foreign language, a basement full of video and audio materials and assistants that can help. It also gets quite crowded in the evening so it’s best to go there in the morning or during the day. The cheapest large book shop in Moscow is called “Molodaya Gvardia” (“The Young Guard”, after a famous Soviet book), situated near the tube station Polyanka. If you buy a lot of books it makes sense to go there because the price difference can be quite significant. They have a section dedicated to Russian learning materials as well.
Well, Moscow is not a shopper’s paradise but it has its moments. I can’t wait for my next trip, to go shopping!