Small Shops

For a lot of Russians, supermarkets are not the first port of call for their shopping. Instead, they tend to use smaller shops.

Open all hours

In the UK, before the days of out of town shopping centres and the 'big is beautiful' mantra leading to an ever-increasing surface area for supermarkets, we had more corners shops, small supermarkets and more independent stores and separate shops according to product type.

Russian shopping is still much more on that model and they have lots of little kiosks, such as this one selling fruit and vegetables...

Sometimes, they're big enough to walk into, like the fruit & veg shop above, or there's just a serving hatch, below.

"Have you got any honey?"

These with the hatch are the ones where, if you're a foreigner and the fridge for drinks is inside, you'll get a warm bottle on a hot day. These small shops are everywhere, often next to bus stops, like the blue building below.

The one in this picture, above, had two kiosks with hatches, one for fruit and the other had snacks, drinks and some random stuff you might need in an emergency such as bog roll. Between was a seating area for passengers.

Wonderfully convenient, with quite a lot open 24 hours and the sense of familiarity of seeing the same faces in your local one, who patiently put up with my poor but improving attempts to use Russian language instead of pointing. Sadly, I don't know how long they'll last. The novelty of cleanliness, bright lights and 'everything under one roof' are flames for the moths, just as in Britain.