Chapter 7. Lesson 7

Thanks to the inroads capitalism has made into Russia, shopping is less of a chore than it ever used to be. During the Soviet period, when various goods would disappear from the state-owned stores, usually with little or no warning and for no apparent reasons, the foreign community (with its валюта hard currency) nearly always had everything it needed or wanted, thanks to the stores known as Берёзка which were off-limits to Soviet citizens. Today, however, Moscow and St. Petersburg and to a lesser extent the capitals of the Newly Independent States are inundated with stores which sell those same goods openly and at prices which are on a par with those in Western Europe and the US. Some of these stores are owned and operated by foreign concerns, some are joint ventures and still others are owned and operated by Russians.

Today there are very few things which you will be unable to purchase in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Whether it is a Cadillac Seville or Arrow shirts, you can be pretty certain that somewhere in the city there's somebody selling just what you need. The big problem today is not whether or not you CAN buy something, but WHERE you're going to find it in the forest of new stores that has replaced the simple берёзки.