One of the pleasures of camping in Russia is that it gets you out into the local markets sampling the local produce.

Actually, not a chance. I was fascinated to learn earlier that Russia even imports potatoes and vodka. (From Holland.) These days it appears Russia imports everything else as well. Barring Polish beef and ‘fascist’ sprats, of course.

So. For ‘zavtrak’, out goes yesterday evening’s borscht and stale kleb. In comes Heinz Beans and Baconburgers.

Russophile notes that Campbell’s is planning to enter the burgeoning Russian market with its own canned borscht. All I can say is that it will be a tough fight for shelf space at Kaliningrad’s Viktoria chain, alongside such traditional Russian favourites as Daucy’s Choucroute Alsacienne and Uncle Ben’s Cantonese Style Sweet’n'Sour.

Why is shelf space tight? According to Elsevier, it’s because the roads are too bad in Russia to drive out to hypermarkets. This they say explains the absence of leading multinationals like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco despite Russia’s impressive retail growth. Hypermarkets were non-existent in Russia five years ago and even now the number of operating hypermarkets in the entire country does not exceed 150 for a population of 144 million.