Why Are You Remonting?

1998 > Russia

They will remont all of Moscow by the time you read this

I just love the Grand Tradition!
Looks like ‘progress’ to some


This is all I really wanted


Shopping in style
I’ve had a long day today. I worked hard for my money
and then went to doctor’s office about my knee. All I wanted to do
was buy some cereal and milk for the morning, but such was not to be.

Russian business owners are idiots. Plain and simple they are
fools, driven by ego more than sense or money. There is a great
grocery store across the street from my house. The Irish House
grocery store is Western, convenient, expensive, and I love it. Everything
I need is right there, from cereal to cheese, all on shelves where I can
caress the cans and jars before I buy the food.

Tonight I went there to get the cereal and milk I needed, but I was
confronted by a store under remodeling (remont in Russian). I
asked a lady working in the store next to it and she said they were
changing it into a clothing store. Figures. Right next to
the grocery store is a mini mall of about seven stores. All the stores
sell outrageously expensive clothes, twice or triple the cost of the
exact same clothes at the department store next to the Irish House.
I personally have only been there once, reeling horror at the
prices, and I have never seen anyone there when I was shopping at
the grocery store. Actually I have seen people there, store
employees, who mobbed me when I walked in there the only time, falling
over themselves to have something to do.

Clothes though, especially outrageously expansive clothes, are more
prestigious than food. I figure, with all the people I saw in the
grocery store, and the high markups on the food, they were making money,
but that isn’t what really dives the Russians, its glamour! So now
I’ve lost a great grocery store to more overpriced crap. Russia!