Moscow shopping loses special feel

By Steve Rosenberg BBC correspondent in Moscow

During communism, many Russians faced long queues and food shortages. Fifteen years later, designer and Western high-street stores have moved into Moscow. Steve Rosenberg reflects on how things have changed.

The fall of communism has seen the birth of consumerism in Russia

Something rather odd happened to me at the shops last week.

I was pushing my trolley around a Moscow supermarket, when I suddenly saw something that made me freeze in my tracks: grapefruit. Stacks of them.

There were pink ones and yellow ones - and all of them just sitting there looking rather forlorn, and forgotten. Muscovites brushed past them in search of something, well, just that little bit more exotic. Like coconuts or mangoes.

Now, citrus does not normally have this effect on me, but for some reason spying this great mountain of grapefruit had sparked a terrifying memory of how I had bought grapefruits in the USSR.

Long waits

Shortages often meant long queues

It was January 1990.

Moscow was still the capital of communism - just. But it was clear then that the Soviet economy was grinding to a halt.

Shelves in the shops were empty, the list of shortages was as long as the Russian winter.

Everyone carried round with them string nets known as "just in case bags", just in case they saw something being sold on the street.

It did not happen very often, but one day I happened to be in the right place at the right time, when a surprise shipment of grapefruit was being sold on what was then Gorky Street.

Three hours later I had made my way to the front of the queue and next morning's breakfast was finally in the bag

Looking back, they were nothing special. Tiddly little things, and, as I recall, a particularly unappetising shade of green.

They had been imported from some faraway socialist ally of the Soviet Union. But since I had not eaten grapefruit for months I decided to join the long queue.

Three hours later, I had made my way to the front of the queue and next morning's breakfast was finally in the bag.

Mystery shopping

Even when people got into the shop, the shelves were often empty

In Soviet times, even if you did find a shop that had something in it to sell, the assortment of goods was not always what you would expect.

On one occasion I walked into a "Tea Shop", at least that is what the sign said on the door.

"I'd like to buy some tea, please," I announced innocently.

"We haven't got any tea," barked the shop assistant. "Only coffee or vodka."

And I will never forget my visit around the same time to a "gastronom", a Russian food store. There was not any food in it.

Instead, quite bizarrely, the shelves were packed with children's potties. Hundreds of them, and all the same horrible kind.

I remember thinking there was not much point buying a potty, if you could not buy any food to go with it.

So I left, potty-less and extremely hungry.

Mind you, there was one place in Moscow where you could always find something worth buying.

The "beryozka", the "silver birch" store. It was such a beautiful name, but what a shameful shop.

Stocked to the hilt with the kind of Western goods ordinary Soviet stores could only dream of, it was designed for foreigners with dollars and deutschmarks, as well as members of the communist elite.

There were guards on the door to keep ordinary Muscovites out. Tinted windows concealed the Aladdin's cave of French cheese and Swiss chocolate, video recorders and fur coats.

And all that was just 15 years ago.

'Retail revolution'

Designer stores have become commonplace in Russia

Today the Moscow shopping scene is very different.

There are dozens of hypermarkets and shopping centres across the capital.

The only queues you will see now are for the car parks nearby. And you will come across the same shops in Moscow that you would find on your own high street - British department stores, UK sportswear outlets and shoe shops.

And now Marks and Spencer is opening up in Moscow. It is a far cry from Marx and Lenin and the days when the capital of communism was better known for its shortages than its shops.

Russia's retail revolution is not limited to Moscow.

Sparkling new malls are opening up across the country. But can Russians afford to visit them?

Well, certainly in Moscow, every weekend the shopping centres are packed out. And the kind of shoppers you will find here are not the rich and famous, or the well-connected.

They are ordinary families, getting their groceries, buying the latest DVDs and computer games and just enjoying a pleasant day of retail therapy. The kind of day I had been having in that Moscow supermarket last week before the sight of all those grapefruits had knocked me off course.

Eventually, I managed to tear myself away from the citrus section and finish my shopping.

It was not difficult. The sprawling store had everything I needed.

But as I pushed my purchases to the car, I realised that the one thing I did not have as I left the shopping centre was a feeling of having achieved anything special.

For that, I suppose, you need to spend three hours in the snow queuing for your grapefruit.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 5 November, 2005 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.