Russians brace for sanctions as their favourite shops close

Moscovites face the extent of the international response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine, discovering closed doors at many retailers where they would shop for clothes and goods.

Yulia Shimelevich hurries to stock up on imported food for her cat and dog as it may soon disappear from Moscow shelves with the onslaught of sanctions from Western capitals on Russia over Ukraine.

"My life has already collapsed," the 55-year old French tutor says.

Major retailers such as Zara, H&M, Ikea and many others suspended sales in Russia overnight, closing their doors in many shopping centres in the capital Moscow.

Her son joined those departing Russia on Sunday. 

Many Muscovites still remember the hardships of the 1990s, when Russia experienced food queues and hyperinflation after the fall of the Soviet Union.

-Prices 'quadrupled' -

Anastasia Naumenko, a 19-year-old journalism student, says she lost her job at a store of the fashion brand Oysho, after its owner, Spanish clothing giant Inditex, announced it was leaving the Russian market. 

"I've heard that prices have already quadrupled," she says walking into a Moscow mall called Metropolis. 

"Who needs my profession with this censorship?" she asks. 

Shopping in a Moscow pharmacy, interior designer Pyotr Loznitsa says he has lost many clients over the past several days.

- 'Everything closing down' -

"In Iran, they too adapted" to sanctions, Loznitsa says. 

"Russian brands can be a replacement. Maybe the sanctions will be good for the Russian market," Filippova says.

"I came to buy my favourite brands one last time, because everything is closing down," the 19-year-old student says, carrying a small pink bag out of a lingerie store. 

But while there has been some progress in textiles and agriculture in other sectors, such as high tech, it has been minimal.

"Everything we have should be ours," the 70-year-old retiree says. 

bur/jj

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