Moscow: Shopping for food every 2 days

One thing that was different about my stay in Moscow, or the Black Sea for that matter, was the time dedicated to shopping. I don’t mean browsing for clothes or the newest electronic gadget. Though you can do this pretty easily in Moscow, no I was thinking more about shopping for the basics. At least a couple times a week we needed to stop at the store on the way home from the Metro and then our supplies lasted only a couple days. There are much larger stores that you can go to and stock up similar to in the US. But getting to and from these stores, while transporting your goods, can be a challenge however. So it does seem to be a bit more complicated here than there. But at least everything is very fresh and most items don’t have preservatives.

While the water is horrible in Moscow we used mostly bottled water. This was probably the thing that ran out the most. I told RB that we should just boil it and put it in empty containers, but she didn’t like that idea for some reason. So every two days we stopped and got more water. Most things were sold in smaller quantities so they ran out. Most soda is sold in 1 liter bottles instead of 2 liter bottles, all the bread is sold mostly in a fresh baked un cut loaf about 2/3 the size of those in the states, and I never saw much pre-sliced lunch meat or cheese. The meat and cheese are available but only in the deli and then is small amounts. So when we would shop close to home we didn’t get a lot of stuff. Not to mention the smaller stores near the apartment had pretty high prices. It was nice that one was on the way home from the metro and the other was about 3 blocks away, but they did charge for the convenience (though this is the same of convenience stores here to, pay more to shop close hence the name).

Now, there are bigger stores in Russia that sell things at prices that are pretty low. The one that we went to was called Awah, pronounced something like Ashat or Ashant. I’m pretty bad at picking up Russian words and names. This store was a cross between a Super Wal-Mart and a Sam’s club. It was pretty much just a warehouse with shelves for product like Sam’s, but had the variety of a Super Wal-Mart. Including electronics, groceries, produce, clothing, toys, sporting goods, and more. Talking to a manager at work who defected from the Soviet Union, he was quite surprised to see such a store in my photos! Lots of stuff to buy and no lines to wait in (at least no lines besides the check out). The prices were very good and while they sold a lot of Russian food I didn’t recognize it looked like you could get everything you might want. The only problem with this store is that it is quite a distance from the apartment.

To get there we had to take a Mart-shootka (my phonetic spelling). This is a European styled van that has seat for 8 or 9 that drives the same route over and over again. It costs like 13 rubles each way (50 cent.) and you wait for it similar to a bus. And just like a bus more people pile in there are seats so it gets a little crowed. The ride takes about 20 minutes each way and it is a 10 minute walk to where we caught our ride. So it is about an hour trip there and back. Then on the way back you have to haul your bags around with you. This is the way it is for the majority of people. Because even though a lot of people have cars, most don’t. So they take the metro, bus, or Mart-shootka to get around, all while hauling there goods. So it can be a bit of a hassle to go grocery shopping.

The nice thing is everything was fresh and you didn’t have to have a car in Moscow to get to the mall or the store. However this was a little off set by the pricing at the local stores and the hassle in getting to and from the big stores. It was also different to have to stop so often to get what we needed. Certainly not like going to the store every 1.5 – 2 weeks and filling the trunk of your car like in the states.