Episode 8: The Russia I Saw

Let me start by talking about what I saw regarding daily life inside of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

I would say it was remarkably normal that there were few signs of a war taking place.

Walking around in those two cities is not much different than walking around in places like New York or places like Chicago.

There were a few signs of the war, however.

I think the most obvious sign was that at a number of what they call petrol stations, or what we call gas stations, you saw long lines.

In some cases, the lines included maybe 15 or 20 cars.

In one case, I think the line probably included about 40 to 50 cars.

That was not true at every petrol station or gas station, but it was true at a number of them.

And this is consistent with what we read in the newspapers.

some other signs of the war that I would note.

First of all, the sanctions have had a significant effect in the sense that if you go into Russia, you cannot use your own credit card or an American credit card, and you can't use American money.

I did not go into Russia realizing that.

So I was effectively penniless when I was in Russia.

If I went to a store or went to a coffee shop, I had to make sure I went with somebody who could pay for me because I had no ability to pay.

I couldn't use any of my credit cards.

I couldn't use American dollars.

you could only use Russian credit cards or rubles.

And I didn't have any of them.

Correspondingly, the Russians cannot use American credit cards.

So if you're a Russian and you want to subscribe to the New York Times, you can't use an American credit card to subscribe because American credit cards can't be used in Russia.

So you would have to use your Russian credit card.

But the problem is you can't use a Russian credit card in the West.

So any Russian who wants to subscribe to the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or some Substack site cannot do it through normal channels.

So you see the effect of sanctions there.

One other sign of the effect of sanctions was that there were a number of coffee shops that you could tell that were once Starbucks coffee shops that are now star coffee shops, but have an emblem that resembles or a symbol that resembles the old Starbucks symbol that was once there.