Pain at home, the Russian people feel the muscle of the world's sanctions now!
Flour, sugar, salt, and buckwheat are hoarded across the country.
The shelf in the Auchan supermarket in central Moscow looks like a prizefighter's rows of teeth after six rounds: full of gaps. From round to round, from day to day: more and more emptiness.
► Many West products are out - everywhere in the country: Barilla noodles, Heinz ketchup, Levi's jeans, Tommy Hilfiger shirts, Bonduelle cans, German egg noodles, Nutella, pizza - hardly there anymore, mostly wholly gone.
There are increasing reports from the provinces of entirely empty shelves. Sugar is hoarded, salt anyway and flour.
Final sale in Cockaigne!
This Saturday, the Russians are storming the shopping malls, shops, and supermarkets because there will be no western tomorrow: the sanctions are taking effect, the West is withdrawing.
The ruble is worth nothing. What comes after western jeans, branded clothes, western technology, and delicacies from other countries is worth even less: domestic goods and Chinese imports!
History happens backward here: On January 31, 1990, 30,000 Russians queued up on Pushkin Square in Moscow for the first burger of their lives. McDonald's had opened, capitalism had triumphed, and planted its flag at the heart of socialism.
McDonald's will also close on Monday. And the Russians are hoarding here, too: Pictures are being posted from all over the country: fridges and freezers full of burgers. The last lines in front of the restaurants. For the last burger.
But: even local products are in short supply – the country itself does not have enough milk, yogurt is rare, so is smetana (sour cream, comes in borscht and solyanka and on pelmeni). And, best crisis barometer: Buckwheat (Gretschka) is hoarded.
► What toilet paper is to the Germans, the Russians are all-rounders: Gretschka goes as grit for breakfast, as a side dish with meat and everything, or as a kind of risotto. And Greschtka lasts forever. You never know how long the crisis will last.
And Russia has a crisis. And how!
Putin is bombing Ukraine; the West is fighting back with its economic power. The Russians are shocked, not from Putin, less from the suffering and the so-called "special military operations" in Ukraine, but from the West. According to official propaganda, he is attacking Russia for no reason. And the crowd believes it.
► So the Kremlin tyrant said on Friday that they would resist the sanctions and set up their own production.
Only: He said that back in 2014, he attacked Ukraine for the first time. Now he's repeating it, and again it doesn't look like it. Putin announced: The sanctions would only make the country stronger.
And he's said that too many times. The opposite has happened. And whenever those at the top say there is no crisis, people storm the shops.
A socialist reflex.
Putin offers IT professionals tax breaks and exemption from military service - if they stay in the country. But intelligence is on its way: get out! Artists, professors, journalists, managers leave. More than 30,000 people from Russia have arrived in Georgia alone in ten days.
The country is on the verge of insolvency and is cut off from international flows of finance and goods. The stock exchange has been closed for more than a week. As a result, foreign companies are pitching their tents.
The country is in danger of falling behind economically: the dollar can no longer be freely traded or exchanged, most ATMs no longer spit out dollars nor euros. Credit cards are no longer working. As a result, prices are rising and have doubled in some cases for food and electronics. Only the fuel is still cheap: 37 cents for 95 Super.
The Russians also need cheap fuel because they will have to drive more. After all, flying will soon be almost impossible. Boeing and Airbus are not sending any parts, remote maintenance is no longer carried out, and because leasing companies are terminating the contracts for the planes, flights are already being canceled en masse.
But without the plane, almost nothing works in the largest country on earth.
Thousands of Russians are already stuck in the ski areas in the Caucasus because the return flights have been canceled - no more planes! Aeroflot offers the free return of tickets - but there is no replacement.
The former chief pilot of Aeroflot and awarded "Hero of Russia," the test pilot Alexander Garnayev prophesies: "Soon all pilots will be without insurance," then nothing would work.
People are dying in Ukraine. Here in Russia, the prosperity. Their blood flows, and here the ruble melts. Millions are fleeing from the Russian army. There here, an army of unemployed is emerging.
Because almost all large Western companies are closing shops, factories and offices, millions of Russians will soon be out of work. Unemployment benefits are only available six months a year - and then only just under 75 euros a month.
And now the US is also banning cash exports of dollars to Putin's country. And that's right: because without dollar cash, there would be no black market - just like there used to be when there were at least a few luxuries under the hood. Or in the foreign exchange store "Berjoiska" (like "Intershop" in the GDR).
But there won't be one either if the country continues like this...
