Way to Russia Talk Lounge

Groobs

If you have visited SPB before, you will recall the kiosks along the walls of the subways and metro underpasses, selling every imaginable CD and DVD for a few bucks,,,, no more!

The "505" kiosks (that’s a chain of DVD shops) that were in the subway under Nevsky at Gostiny Dvor metro have been stripped out, and now sell a pitiful range of dismal Christmas decorations and soft toys.....

I spoke with the manager of my local 505 store on Bolshoi Prospect, he said they have been told to close and get out by 1 January. The other stores are in a similar position - running low on stocks, no new product coming in because the wholesalers of the discs are in turn being clamped down on, as Russia gears up to meet its WTO obligations on Intellectual Property Rights protection,,,,

So gone are the joys of watching "this week release" movies with "For the consideration of the Academy" popping up on screen every few minutes, gone is the opportunity to install MS Office for $5, gone is Adobe Photoshop 7 (or whatever the latest version is) for $3,,,,,,,,,

The wholesale disc market that is about a half hour's bus ride out of Ploschad Vosstanya (can never remember its name, sorry) is also being closed, apparently.

Personally, perhaps wrongly and naively, I have never had a problem in buying these discs. True, if no-one bought full price discs then I guess the economics of production falls apart, but I struggle to believe the true price of Office should be (as I just saw on amazon.uk) 438 GBP!!! Surely it lies somewhere between this and $5!

Does counterfeiting discs feed money to terrorist groups? Instinctively as this is the line parroted by Blair back home in my country, I tend to disbelieve it. And organized crime may (and obviously is in fact!) criminal, but is really it a feeder for terrorist funding? Perhaps to an extent, but somehow I tend to imagine criminals working on their own account,,,,

Anyway, the gold-rush of stocking your DVD library is for sure over in Russia now, maybe China is the place.

(BTW, amusingly, when the G8 Summit was here earlier in the year, they closed down the DVD shops that you could see from Nevsky while all the delegates were staying in the big hotels, only to open them up again when the circus left town.....!) Laughing

nikir · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:00 pm Post subject:

Groobs that's a great pity. It was one of the last frontiers of free enterprise. Are you sure theyr'e all gone or is it just the ones in the cente? It might be worth a metro ride to Moskovskaya or Avtovo and a stroll through the perehodi. And the rynok at yunono how's that.

Groobs · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:07 pm Post subject:

nikir, they're not all gone, many still around, but great swathes of the shelves are bare in some, and the stock is definitely on its last legs,,,,,

Thanks for reminding me, Yunono is the place I can never remember the name of - its being closed down, as far as discs go anyway, that's what I am hearing. I plan a trip there to see for myself, was going today but its ****ing it down raining and am feeling the after effects of a night out, so it can wait!

The other thing that's happening is that the actual cost of the discs is rising - I see very few DVDs now under 100 Rur, many are, incredibly, up to 500 and even 600 Rur - and they are copies, not genuine - there is no excuse for that lol! Pure racketeering! Rolling Eyes

nikir · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:27 pm Post subject:

I noticed in August that there weren't as many of these around as in 2004.

I wonder what the Russians will do now when the cost of windows or office runs out to over 438 GBP. That's a fortune for them and an amount I'd not pay if there were a better offer around.

I reallyt get pissed of with micro$oft trying to scew the world, how in fuck can they justify a cost like that per disk - ad infenitum?

Groobs · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:34 pm Post subject:

I couldn't agree with you more - the thick end of a thousand bucks for that tired old suite of bug-ridden insecure programs?!

BTW, I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Gates family home when Bill announced one breakfast time to his kids "you know that $20billion i have in the bank? Well, I am going to give it all away!" Gives a new meaning to "spending the kids inheritance" I guess! Surprised

nikir · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:50 pm Post subject:

Bug ridden and insecure indeed. The funny thing is that I have been running my home PC for years on software that I bought in Russia (regularly updated as the opportunity arose of course) because it had the convenience of a Russian interface. But the same bugs were there in the $5 version as were in the $800 + version that my friends have, not to mention the networking versions at work. Then they want a heap more for a language pack. Greed and nothing but.

No wonder Gates can part with 20 bil, 40 will roll into the account the next day!

Peter80 · Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 5:41 pm Post subject:

Groobs, you are not familiar with subject good enough. CD stores are not gone, they are doing good and will be for long time to come. That's a good thing, because people can't pay much money for that. Foreign businessmen seem like to begin understanding that and i see that there appear official CDs marked as "made for Russia" for about 150 rubles. They have good quality packaging and paper and this seems the only way for music industry to get their piece of market.