The latest iPhone, Chanel perfumes or a Rolex: Western brands fill Russian shop windows despite sanctions

A woman was buying a Christmas decoration in the Gum shopping center, on Thursday in Moscow. YURI KOCHETKOV (EFE)

While kyiv faces winter in the dark due to the bombing of its power plants, Moscow is decked out with thousands of lights for the New Year holidays.

At first glance, the sanctions do not seem to have made a dent in the bright windows of its shopping centers.

Those who have money can afford to buy brands that had supposedly left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

European clothes, American electronics, fashionable perfumes, you can still find almost everything today, although more expensive.

The latest iPhone, a cappuccino in the

Starbucks or an Inditex shirt, everything continues in shop windows whose lights sweeten a serious economic crisis.

Hundreds of people crowd the historic Gum shopping center, located next to Red Square.

Many official stores have closed, but other former distributors continue to sell their products.

The same is true of other large areas built in the heat of the boom years, such as the paradoxical Evropeiski (European, in Russian) in the kyiv station square, and in the touristic Novi Arbat street, where flashes of ice and neon signs illuminate its dozens of shops already decorated for Christmas.

There, the ultra-capitalist Black Friday is even advertised on a giant poster despite the Kremlin's staunch defense of its "traditional values".

The government legalized on March 29 what it calls "parallel imports," the smuggling of certain brands without the permission of their copyright holder.

Many Western firms have left the country, mainly due to the difficulties in making profits and the reputational damage, but their products continue to find their way to shop windows.

Unlike the USSR, the Russian government does not veto the entry of products and there are neighboring third countries that do business by looking the other way.

Likewise, some multinationals, especially electronics and fashion, have also relocated

their remaining

stores such as the Russian platform Wildberries, according to sources in the sector.

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“You can see (the boycott), half the shops have left,” says Ilia Nazarskii while shopping in Evropeiski.

This young man emphasizes that, despite everything, there wasn't much variety before.

“Zara only brought us garbage in the last four years.

If you compare with Spain, they brought us the leftovers that were not sold there, ”he affirms before stressing that they had already gotten used to buying abroad, especially in Belarus:“ Has everything become more expensive?

It depends on where you are looking and the brand you are looking for.

The Stone Island (a sweatshirt), for example, costs 30,000 rubles (475 euros) here and 10,000 in Belarus.

And Belarus is five hours away, two by plane.”

Two friends, Yulia and Marina, agree that life will go on the same.

"There are fewer shops and fewer people," acknowledges the second, "although these premises will be occupied by others and nothing much will change."

“Look at the new McDonald's.

Prices have gone up and quality has gone down, but people keep going,” she adds.

Opposite them is the L'Occitane store, a huge space where you can buy all kinds of western perfumes at an extra cost: Chanel, Hugo Boss, Hermès and even the Antonio Banderas line.

In the Gum shopping center there does not seem to be any boycott due to the war either, with notable exceptions such as the Chanel, Burberry or Bulgari stores.

Other stores are open without any change, such as Swatch, Omega, Hugo Boss, Manolo Blahnik, Lacoste, New Balance, Rolex, Mont-Blanc or Samsung, which has reopened with more expensive prices: your Galaxy A52 mobile phone is worth 26,990 rubles, almost 100 euros more than in Spain.

And other stores have just renamed their signs: Levi's is now Dzhins'A (Jeans'A, in Russian), and its pants brands '501' and '502' are worth between 15,000 and 16,000 rubles, about 250 euros at current exchange rates, plus twice as much as in Spain.

We are talking about luxury items for the average Russian.

According to the state statistics agency Rosstat, the capital's median salary reached 111,092 rubles in 2021, while the national median salary increased to 56,495.

However, the agency's figures must be taken with caution: it says that annual inflation is 12%, but another reality is perceived on the street and a study by the Romir center on 500 products in the shopping cart denounces that prices They have shot up 48%.

More expensive phones with fewer features

“The guarantee is two years.

If it breaks, we'll exchange it for a new one”, replies a seller from the Re:Store, one of Apple's former official distributors, next to a showcase of the latest generation phones.

The company closed its official stores on March 1, just after the invasion of Ukraine began, but its new

are sold in Russia nine months later.

In that chain they have in the catalog the iPhone 14 Pro Max of 256 gigabytes at 144,990 rubles, almost 2,300 euros compared to 1,599 of its official price in Spain.

"In addition, the repair centers are still open as always," emphasizes the Re:Store seller, who manages two of the five repair points authorized by the Cupertino (California) company in Moscow.

Its largest official distributor, DNS, also sells that model somewhat cheaper, at 2,000 euros just to change.

However, the biggest deals can be found in the unofficial stores.

The iStudio chain has one of its stores on Novi Arbat street, and also repairs Apple products at its own expense and risk.

“Our warranty is one year,” says his employee.

He avoids explaining where the phones come from by telling him that Apple no longer operates in Russia.

In that store, the iPhone Pro Max costs 107,999 rubles, about 1,715 euros, if purchased at the moment, although they offer it at 94,999 rubles if you wait two or three months.

Probably brought in via parallel import.

When sanctions were eased by the Donbas war, Belarus was the most popular route for smuggling to Russia.

Now that the European Union has tightened its restrictions on Minsk for its collaboration in the invasion, the containers arrive via Iran across the Caspian Sea and through Turkey, where exports to Russia have grown at the same pace as imports from Europe.

In any case, the vision of these shop windows can be misleading.

According to an investigation by the

newspaper , the sale of phones has plummeted 30% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.

The drop has been more pronounced among high-end phones because many applications have been rendered useless by the sanctions.

"Your payment method has been declined."

One of the big problems is being able to pay for foreign subscription services.

The vast majority of multinationals do not accept Russian bank accounts due to the sanctions, making it impossible to subscribe to chains such as Netflix, Disney or HBO, buy video games on platforms such as Steam, or subscribe to applications from the Apple or Google stores.

However, made the law, made the cheat: there are services such as iCloud cloud storage that are accessible thanks to telephone companies such as MTC acting as a mediator and charging it in the monthly bill.

And not just mobile.

All economic sectors have been hit hard.

According to figures from the Association of European Businesses, car sales have been reduced since the summer by between 60% and 75% compared to the previous year.

Refreshing drinks in a supermarket in Moscow. Javier G. Cuesta

On Novi Arbat is Stars Coffee, the old Starbucks with the logo almost traced.

Virtually nothing has changed and they follow the same products, the same clients with their Macbooks.

“It's the same as before;

maybe the coffees are a little cheaper”, says Alina after closing the laptop.

Multinationals have protected their business in Russia by handing it over to former partners for symbolic prices until everything calms down.

So did McDonald's, renamed Tasty and Period, and Coca-Cola, now Dobri Kola (Good Cola).

Its taste is very similar despite the fact that the company assures that it does not receive the components from the US as before.

Lego also announced in March that it was suspending the shipment of toys and in the summer it transferred its stores, but dozens of boxes of the brand are sold in a Detski Mir (Planet of Children, in Russian) store, such as Harry's Hogwarts Courtyard Potter at 5,200 rubles, more than 80 euros compared to 49 in Spain.

Prices for the Russian upper class, although there is a more affordable option for this Christmas: children's stores are packed with official toys of the Russian Armed Forces.

Tanks, bombers, trucks and missile launchers of the Armiya brand, like the ones you see on TV every day.

And if parents prefer something civilian, they also have Rosgvárdia riot gear for ages four and up.

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