The mystery of Moscow’s empty supermarket shelves

My local supermarket in Moscow is, by any standards, a well-heeled place. It’s called the Alphabet of Taste, and its mission is to present its wealthy Moscow consumers with refined new ways of parting with their money. The deli counter offers more than 80 cheeses (including such exotica as Bûche d’Affinois and two sorts of Stilton), as well as buckets of fresh black caviar and delicious salads of quails’ eggs and Kamchatka crab.

The clientele is as classy as the stock. The thick-fingered meathead types who used to pass for Russia’s elite in the rough-and-tumble of the Yeltsin years have been replaced by a sleeker, more civilised model. They politely stand aside to let you pass in the aisles, and many wouldn’t look out of place in a London boardroom or at the Chelsea Flower Show. In short, spend some time at the Alphabet of Taste and you’d think that Russia’s elite are fast rejoining the European mainstream after a century or so of Soviet and post-Soviet vulgarity.