Word: moscow
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...used to say Moscow is an island of prosperity in an ocean of despair," laughs Mark Wrong, a British developer with plans to build Western-style malls in several Russian cities. "But it's not true any more." Last month he broke ground on his first mall, in Yaroslavl, which is about 240 km northeast of Moscow, and over the next two to three years he hopes to have outposts as far as Ufa and Yekaterinburg. Such expansion outside Moscow was unthinkable even a few years ago, but it's a sign of how Russian retailing has evolved over...
...something is stirring here in provincial Russia, a three-hour drive from Moscow. The potholes on Lenin Street are as treacherous as ever, but over the past couple of years the dreary Soviet-era stores that once lined it have been snapped up and remodeled. Waitresses in red tartan aprons now dish out edible pizza for $1 a slice at Tashir's shiny new restaurant, which also offers wireless Internet access. Nearby are a sushi bar, a kitchen-design store, a café that bears a passing resemblance to Starbucks, a bright yellow mobile-phone kiosk that's open 24 hours...
...bringing signs of prosperity to the long-suffering hinterland. Although the distribution of wealth is far from egalitarian--the rich are getting a lot richer, corruption is endemic, and millions continue to struggle--the good life is in reach for more Russians than ever before. Victoria Grankina, a Moscow-based retail expert, estimates that 30% of the population lives "fairly comfortably" on monthly incomes averaging $1,000 for a family of four. The number of mobile phones has soared from 12 for every 100 Russians in 2002 to 88 today. Sales of new foreign cars jumped 60% last year...
...control of natural resources and other industries it deems strategic. The Bush Administration, which has grown uneasy about Russian assertiveness beyond its borders, issued an unusually harsh indictment last week when Vice President Dick Cheney said Russia has "unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people" and warned Moscow against trying to meddle in the affairs of neighboring countries...
Vibrant as the scene is in backwaters like Kaluga, the signs of new prosperity in Russia's cities are even more striking. Yekaterinburg, a city of 1.3 million in the Urals region, 900 miles east of Moscow, is best known as the place where the Bolshevik revolutionaries shot the last Czar and his family in 1918. In the early 1990s, local factories ran out of money, and rival Mafia gangs battled for control of parts of town. The killings haven't entirely stopped (a member of the city council was found hanged in his jail cell last year after being...