Что, с гречкой в России, действительно, все так плохо, что о ней уже специально пишут?

MOSCOW — Galina Litvyak had stopped by the kiosk down the road, wandered through nearby supermarkets and badgered friends for the latest rumors. Nobody knew where to find it. All over her middle-class neighborhood, the stores were filled with an ample selection of goods, reflecting just how much Moscow has changed over the last two decades. With one exception.

The Great Buckwheat Shortage of 2010 was not letting up.

As if the summer’s brutal heat, forest fires and drought were not enough, this country is now suffering through one final bit of weather-related misery, a scarcity of a beloved staple that is causing a kind of national time warp. Russians like Ms. Litvyak, 72, a retired bookkeeper, are falling back on scrounging habits honed under Communism. And not liking it.

“I cannot locate buckwheat anywhere, and if I could, it would be too expensive for me to buy it,” she said as she entered a sprawling supermarket called Perekrestok (Intersection), where she would again be disappointed. “I went from store to store. I would ask, ‘When is the buckwheat coming in?’ and they would say, we don’t know, it’s because of the heat or because of the drought, or something like that. There is no buckwheat anywhere.”

Полностью.

По ссылке от kashin.