Sasha went to the Moscow cinema in Vladivostok to watch the release of “Red Panda”. He left his brand new Moskvitch in a parking lot and, as he entered the exhibition hall, he was carrying a bottle of CoolCola. After the session, he stopped by a Mak to take home a hamburger.
The scene above did not occur, but its elements are in place to define the new Russian reality under the empire of Western sanctions against the War in Ukraine, started almost three months ago by Vladimir Putin.
As in a perverse version of the short classic “Goodbye Lenin” (Wolfgang Becker, 2003), in which a stubborn socialist wakes up from a coma in the post-Berlin wall world and her son creates a simulacrum of East Germany in the domestic microcosm, Russians follow in 2022 —but increasingly surrounded by an alternate reality.
The Moscow cinema, in the capital of the Russian Far East, actually screened Hollywood premieres for a few days in May. “Red Panda” was actually the children’s “Red: Growing Up a Beast”, “The Bat”, the new Batman with Robert Pattinson, and “The Blue Hedgehog 2” brings the second adventure of the character Sonic.
In their official version, all these films had their release banned in Russia after the sanctions, for fear of the distributors of being caught in some collateral punishment. Pirate copies arrived, and secret seances in major cities escalated to paroxysm in Vladivostok.
The party ended with the news spreading on social media, and the cinema claimed that the screenings were private, contracted by individuals. That’s why. But it’s just the beginning of the story.
On Monday (16), Sacha and other Muscovites were introduced to the new line of soft drinks from the former Soviet factory Otchakovo, until now specializing in typical Russian drinks such as kvass (fermented rye).
On convenience store shelves, an unwary might buy CoolCola, Fancy and Street thinking they were the Western originals Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite — all brands have officially suspended production in the country due to the war. The bottles emulate the color scheme of the matrices and the taste, according to those who tasted it, is less sweet.
In the pocket, they are more attractive than the still existing cans and bottles of product stocks of foreign origin. A liter and a half of Street costs 89 rubles (R$ 6.8), equivalent to a 500 ml can of Coke or Pepsi, an even more comprehensive brand that has also suspended its sales – but not of its entire line. food.
“It feels like we put on virtual reality goggles and everything is there, but different,” says Sacha, a journalist who asked not to be named because he feared the general climate of repression in the country. The country expects to cut consumer goods imports by 25% in 2022, and has lost an estimated 750 Western brands after the conflict.
Monday brought two other items to the menu of the scene imagined at the beginning of this text. Moskvitch (Muscovite, in Russian) was the name of one of the most famous car brands of the Soviet Union, made from 1946 until the collapse of the communist empire in 1991. For another ten years, it survived in renovated versions in Russia, until it went bankrupt and have the estate absorbed by Renault.
The French automaker had its biggest overseas operation in Putin’s country, employing 45,000 people. In the second, he announced that he had sold everything to the government for a symbolic price and a guarantee of repurchase in six years – a sign of the crisis horizon in the eyes of businessmen.
The Moscow government took control of the factories and dealerships, and Mayor Sergei Sobianin promised to revive the Moskvitch brand with help from Kamaz, Russia’s biggest truck maker, whose biggest shareholder is state-owned technology company Rostec. Whether there will be parts and chips for the new cars is an open question.
McDonald’s, the chain whose arrival in the Soviet Union in 1990 is in the timeline of the twilight of communism, had temporarily closed its 847 Russian stores once the war broke out. With the monthly cost of US$ 50 million to maintain the network, he also threw in the towel on Monday and put everything up for sale.
There is still no news of a buyer, but it seems certain that some adaptation will be made – perhaps not the Mak suggested here, given that the agreement provides for a veto on the use of symbols and names associated with the brand, it remains to be seen whether this will survive the Russian cunning in dealing with the sanctions so far.
Despite the pressures and even seeing the football team suspended from the Qatar Cup, the Russian economy has not yet imploded and the ruble remains stable, due to appreciation maneuvers such as the obligation to trade with the currency for countries considered hostile.
Even in this group, as the European reluctance to cut the purchase of R$5.4 billion a day of Russian oil and gas proves, there are divisions. And Putin’s friends China and India have been increasing their trade, as well as snatching assets in the xepa of Russian prices.
In everyday life, there is inflation, not yet the tragic 25% per year expected by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), which predicts a negative GDP of perhaps 15% in 2022. The impact on unemployment is also contracted, with an expectation of the current 5% double by the end of the year.
For the middle class, the most immediate effects have been the limitation of credit card use, the virtual shutdown of the international travel system and the cultural cancellation of Russia. And, increasingly, the parallel world of the disappearance of western brands and the rise of CoolCola.
