Buttons and jeans finished. Goodbye era of post-Soviet abundance: soon most of the products arriving from the West will no longer be found
It’s only been three months but Russia appears to have plunged into another geological era. Of course, even before the Special Military Operation in Ukraine which began on February 24, there were Western sanctions. But the changes of these 15 weeks have brought the country into a situation that many compare to that of the darkest years of the Cold War. For now the shops are still relatively well stocked but soon most of the products that come from the West will no longer be found. And the same thing will happen in the industry that is already struggling to procure spare parts. Including the mining industry on which the very survival of the Russian economy depends. The news came first in blocks, with announcements from restrictions that were triggered from one day to the next and companies that were leaving. Then a trickle of bad news continued for the whole nation and for individual consumers.
No more direct air connections with 90 percent of the world, no more Ikea, McDonald’s and Levi’s jeans. End of compulsive shopping at the GUM, at the Crocus Village in Moscow and in the other luxury centers where “everyone” had had to open, from Louis Vuitton to Ferrari and Lamborghini. Just going to Helsinki today takes hours and hours by train if you don’t want to fly via Istanbul or Yerevan in Armenia. The buttons are not found, the putty for dental fillings is missing. If earlier we were discussing the flag under which the Russian athletes had to parade, now the problem is solved drastically: out of all sports (or almost). The Russian football championship is also changing its face. Most of the foreign players will leave by the end of June. “Back in the Ussr”, except that in the times of the Soviet Union Ukrainian phenomena also came to play in Moscow and Leningrad. Belanov from Odessa and Blokhin from Kiev, both winners of the Golden Ball, just to name two. Today, even if there was a Russian phenomenon, it would not even be considered by the jury.
The shortcomings in the industry are far more serious. Eliminate all the foreign oil companies that collaborated (and provided the technology) in the development of the fields: Shell, Bp, Total. Stop to searches in the Arctic (the environment thanks) and to new gas liquefaction plants to be able to sell it even without gas pipelines. Russia still exports a lot of methane and a lot of oil
(the Chinese trade in gold by buying the discounted Urals at $ 70 a barrel) and receives mountains of currency. But perhaps this will not last, because customers will decrease, also for fear of being sanctioned themselves. And the wells will not be able to operate at full capacity. As well as domestic flights: Aeroflot and the others had been using Western aircraft for years. Imports are collapsing, even if Putin claims that “everything is fine” and Russia is organizing itself to trade with new partners: “We will expand cooperation with the countries that are interested.” But his own finance ministry says the state collected 33% less VAT on imports in April. Every day comes bad news for ordinary citizens who have more and more difficulty in finding work, given that thousands are walking around the closure of many companies. Women working in the rented womb sector, which is legal in Russia, will also be unemployed shortly. A law just passed the first reading in the Duma he wants to prohibit foreigners from turning to Russians for this practice.
May 24, 2022 (change May 24, 2022 | 21:26)
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