THE TELEGRAPH: In Moscow, designer bling fills once-bare shelves, but Lisa Grainger's best buys are rooted in the past.
If I have discovered one thing during my two-week stay in Moscow, it is that nothing is straightforward – not getting a visa, not traversing the city (where the traffic often doesn't move at all) and certainly not shopping.
As I tried to locate the stores recommended by Muscovite friends, I was reminded time and time again of Winston Churchill's words: Russia is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". Nowhere is that more apparent than in Moscow, a city that hides its treasures rather than flaunts them.
When shopping, it is not bling that is hard to uncover; there are hundreds of obvious temptations at which to throw a gold card, albeit at very much higher prices than in Europe. Malls dot the city's streets, from the mid-market Atrium to the spookily empty Barvikha Luxury Village, filled with goods by Ferrari and Cartier. Petrovka, Moscow's equivalent of Bond Street, is lined with shop windows glittering with every non-essential item a New Russian might desire: diamond tiaras, full-length coats in mink and sable, Italian white truffles, gilded antiques. >>> Lisa Grainger | Tuesday, May 18, 2010
