September 24, 2014 — Vladimir Putin’s first decade in power came to be known in Moscow as the “sushi years,” so totally had raw fish become a dining staple for the rising consumer class in his capital.
The sushi bubble is deflating now, hastened by the plunge in the ruble and the trade war triggered by Putin’s intervention in Ukraine that has foodies complaining about substitutes from as far away as Chile.
“The black swan event for our industry has been the confrontation with the West,” Rostislav Ordovsky-Tanaevsky Blanco, founder and chairman of OAO Rosinter, Russia’s largest restaurant holding company, said in an interview. “It’s hit costs on the foods that we had imported from Europe and the U.S., and the full effects have yet to be felt.”
Moscow’s consumers have plenty to lose in Putin’s deepening estrangement from some of his biggest trading partners. A Muscovite’s average monthly salary leaped 440 percent to 58,800 rubles ($1,530) between Putin’s appointment as president in 2000 and the second quarter of 2014, according to data compiled by Oleg Kouzmin, a Moscow-based economist at Renaissance Capital Ltd.
Their craving for raw fish now is harder to satisfy. Putin reacted to sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe by cutting off imports of fish, meat, vegetables, cheese and dairy products from the U.S., European Union, Norway, Canada and Australia. Since the order took effect Aug. 7, the ruble has declined 5.3 percent against the dollar, bringing its loss for the year to 16 percent. The dollar-denominated RTS stock index is the world’s fifth-worst performer among 93 tracked by Bloomberg.
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