Cosmopolitan no more: Russians feel sting of cultural and economic rift

Guardian UK ^ | 5/20/2022 | Pjotr Sauer

[marcusmaximus]

A trip to the mall in Russia is a different experience today than it was just a few short months ago.

“When I had my first child, there was all this choice. Mothercare, Zara, you name it,” said Evgenia Marsheva, a 33-year-old architect. But when she went shopping in Moscow this month for her newborn, many of those large retail brands had been shuttered.

“Now, I can only find very cheap or extremely expensive Russian products. I was brought up with tales of the limited choices that my parents had during the Soviet Union. I never thought that would come back.”

Three months into the war, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, and almost 1,000 foreign brands – the majority of them voluntarily – have curtailed their operations there, according to records kept by the Yale School of Management. The exodus of companies continued this week with McDonald’s officially announcing it would leave Russia after three decades.

-snip-

for many in Moscow and other Russian cities, the country’s growing political and economic isolation is having a direct impact on their livelihoods.

“Since the conflict started, every step in the production line is a struggle,” said Vladimir Kukushkin, a director of a printing company in Ekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city.

Kukushkin complained that after Adobe announced that its software would not be available in Russia, he had to find new ways to design his products, while the rising prices of ink and paper have placed further strain on his business.

“It has also been hard to promote my business because Instagram and Facebook are blocked. These might look like little things but they really add up,” he said.

[kiryandil]

As their currency soars compared to other nations’.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face asked to pay in rubles.

All the FR ruble scoffers are missing the little fact that the Russki teller at the commodities window gets told by the supervisor what the euros or dollars of the petitioner for natural gas are worth at the moment of the transaction - regardless of what the exchange rate is.

Coming soon to Urals heavy crude oil, wheat and a whole list of other real physical Russian goods. IF you've been on The Nice List...

Hey, at least WE have "digital money" and "Bitcoin".     

[kiryandil]

“The ruble is rubble” - PuppetBoy KiddieDiddler, 2022

[NorseViking]

Yep, the article is largely propaganda. The buying power of the average Russian is now higher compared to pre-2014 when the first sanctions were applied.
IKEA, Apple, GM, H&M pulled out -good grief.
Two months were enough for electronics and car dealerships to find alternative sources and they are offering the same at lower prices than official distributors did before the war.
For lower margin clothing retailers it takes more time but they’d definitely fix it in a few months.

[NorseViking]

Instead of paying tens of thousands $ for CAD software his is soon to find out that he can get the latest for free from the Chinese pirate servers.

[kiryandil]

I don’t think the Western software guys thought this one through - they don’t have any enforcement mechanisms any longer.

[BiglyCommentary]

Loaded with CHICOM spyware. Just another way Russia is becoming China’s prison b****.

[NorseViking]

Clean it up. Or hire Russian coders to hack. It beats paying $4k per workstation for authentic software anyway.

[BiglyCommentary]

LOL! That is a clown answer. I can see you have no experience with multi-million line code bases.

[NorseViking]

I probably didn’t, but others did. Do you think there is no free AutoCAD out there?

[BiglyCommentary]

Free hacked AutoCad is great if you are designing something for personal use but it is a total clown show for a multi-million dollar company. Just wait till those Chinese hackers install ransomware and shut down the company.

[NorseViking]

There is a government program to fix this issue. I think they’d solve it very soon.

[LS]

Looks like we are the ones increasingly with the closed economy.

[Vermont Lt]

You have no concept of how big the US economy is. Or how insignificant the Russians are in the world.

[LS]

As an economic historian, I think I do.

In both cases.