‘Yekaterinburg is Russia’s second most dynamically developing city in terms of emerging trade centers, outstripped only by Moscow. The market has by now reached the point of 80% to 90% saturation, so one could expect the competition to grow stronger in the nearest future,’ Alexei Vanchugov, the spokesperson for Mall Management, said to UrBC.

‘I believe the local market is comparable to that of a European city as regards the range of products and services and the infrastructure development. This is only natural, since most projects have been inspired by their western counterparts. As regards the service, however, namely, the shop assistants, the mall staff, and the availability of certain things, our trade centers fail to meet European standards,’ Mr Vanchugov observed.

‘As the competition is going to get quite fierce, these will be the out-of-date malls (such as the so-called ‘indoor fairs’ that offer nothing more than basic consumer goods and are not good enough for enjoyable shopping) that will leave the market first,’ he said.