Over the last few weeks, a few topics keep coming up in my classes. The standard of living in the US versus Russia, homosexuality, and inherent Russian and American cultural differences. These are all fairly serious things, and are really eye opening when you're comparing the two countries. First and foremost though, time for supermarkets.
Kirovski is my neighborhood supermarket, and I hate it with a passion. It's small, not that clean, the produce is questionable, but nine times out of ten it's cheaper than shopping at Kupyetz the massive supermarket near work, or Stockmann's the import grocery store. They are usually 20-40% more expensive. And of course Monyetka, which is the equivalent of shopping in a favela.
Kirovski is my neighborhood supermarket, and I hate it with a passion. It's small, not that clean, the produce is questionable, but nine times out of ten it's cheaper than shopping at Kupyetz the massive supermarket near work, or Stockmann's the import grocery store. They are usually 20-40% more expensive. And of course Monyetka, which is the equivalent of shopping in a favela.
Just an average day at Monyetka
There also happens to be two Monyetkas near my house each about a block away....One of them got in trouble for giving(selling??) rotten food to homeless people, the homeless people went on to sell said food, I'm assuming for what could only have been heroin and bath salts. After all, I'm not sure who but heroin addicts and well anyone stupid enough to do bath salts would eat food from those Monyetkas. It's a rough life, bath salts and food from Monyetka.
More importantly, I went grocery shopping tonight. Now over this last week or two, I've been eying picking up some exotic fruit. Pears, apples, bananas, and mandarins just aren't cutting anymore. Last night I almost even bought a Pomelo, and I have absolutely no idea what that is. I refrained though, mostly because it looked like a grapefruit, and well grapefruits are edible only to people who aren't me.
Silicone breast implants for 75p/kg?
Well anyway, I went shopping on my way home tonight, I need some staples: cheese, juice, chicken, vodka.... Walking into the store, you need to go past the "produce" display. A 6 foot long shelf with baskets of mostly bruised/borderline rotted fruit and vegetables. Tonight though, the fruit gods must have come to Ekb. The bananas looked edible, the apples weren't bruised and gouged, and they had pineapples. Seeing pineapples isn't a new thing, I can buy close to any food I want here....Minus a few things like buffalo sauce and pepperoni, Stockmann's even has Betty Crocker cookie mix. Pineapples usually go for close to $8/kg in Stockmanns and Kupyetz. Starfruit goes for close to $30, and Cantaloupe is $10/kg. Pineapple at Kirovski? A cool 75p/kg or $2.50/kg, a measly $1.25/lb. I'm not sure how a pineapple can get from Costa Rica and only cost me $3, but in Russia it's best never to question.
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