I would not say there’s an abundance of farmland. Yes, it’s quite big, but most of the Russian territory actually has quite extreme climate conditions, not suit

I would not say there’s an abundance of farmland. Yes, it’s quite big, but most of the Russian territory actually has quite extreme climate conditions, not suitable for farming. And even good farmland is actually abandoned, which always surprised me. I was travelling by car from Saint Petersburg to Sochi every summer till 2016. Huge areas filled with nothing but weeds, or even worse — toxic and hard to eradicate hogweed. So food there usually a little bit cheaper (not much) just because it’s a lot lower quality.