01/26/2026 

Russians have a new trend. Now they go to stores, supermarkets and shoot videos about how food prices have increased in the new year. Some are horrified, others even cry. But stories about food prices and ways to survive are in great demand on social networks.

Read more about this in the material on OBOZ.UA.

“Tomorrow soup, the day after tomorrow pasta”

A week ago, a video by the author under the nickname Aleksa888 appeared on YouTube . The girl talks in such an otherworldly voice about her feelings from a trip to a Russian supermarket.

“I stand in front of the automatic doors of the supermarket, and it seems to me that I am entering a cold, sterile temple, where my hopes for a normal life are sacrificed every day. January 2026 seemed prickly, angry, with a gray sky that presses the city to the ground,” she begins her long monologue about food prices in Russia.

The huge store is half-empty, and its grocery shelves are also half-empty. Shoppers with pensive faces circle the hall, carefully examining price tags and weighing packages of butter and cereals in their hands.

The author says that the list of products is getting shorter and shorter each time, only the most necessary.

“I used to love walking in rows. I liked the rustle of packages, the smell of fresh bread, the bright spots of fruit. Now every hike is mathematical torture, you have to subtract, divide, and round in your mind until your head starts to buzz,” the author continues.

Now, ordinary watery cucumbers, which were previously bought in nets, have become a delicacy, as if they were grown on Mars, and the author’s daughter will no longer be able to taste a summer salad in the middle of winter – it’s expensive.

A pack of butter weighing 80 g now costs as if cows were fed gold dust. 300 rubles (150 UAH) for a piece of fat, which is enough for several breakfasts. You have to choose – to buy butter or milk.

The price tag for beef is 1200 rubles (600 UAH), the author tries not to look at it, like many buyers. Now meat is a holiday that happens less and less often. A package of chicken drumsticks is the maximum that a working woman can afford.

Pensioners with trembling hands examine packs of buckwheat, count the remaining pensions, calculating whether they will have enough to live until the next payment. The prices of bread have also changed, now a loaf, which before the new year cost 60 rubles (30 UAH), is already sold for almost 100 rubles (50 UAH). Lemons are 400 rubles (200 UAH).

Chicken, bread, milk, a pack of pasta, a few potatoes and a lemon cost 2,300 rubles (1,150 UAH). The author has two weeks until her payday, and now she needs to plan what she will cook for herself and her daughter to make ends meet. “Tomorrow soup, the day after tomorrow pasta…”

Like many Russians, by 2022 she was planning to buy appliances and travel with her daughter, but now she barely has enough to fill her empty refrigerator with anything.

Videos with high prices are popular

Another author of a video blog about food and product prices, “Kite from St. Petersburg,” summed up 2025. He visited the same stores once a month and compared prices for the same products. This channel is popular among residents of the Russian Federation.

According to the author’s calculations, over the year vodka in St. Petersburg has increased in price by 160 rubles (80 UAH), champagne – by 59 rubles (30 UAH), chicken fillet by 30-80 rubles (15-40 UAH), turkey fillet has increased by 50 rubles (25 UAH), a pack of cheese weighing 0.5 kg – 60 rubles (30 UAH).

Tea and coffee prices have risen significantly. For example, a pack of Greenfield tea has increased in price by 60 rubles (30 UAH), and 1 kg of ORO coffee has increased by 600 rubles (300 UAH).

Similar videos are being posted by Russian buyers from Yaroslavl, Vologda, Perm, and other cities. Pensioners from Krasnoyarsk tell bloggers about their feelings about the price increase in January 2026.

“I can’t buy cheese, meat, or even butter. God forbid there’s enough for bread and pasta,” the shopper shares.

A woman at the market explained with a laugh that “you know where our money goes.” That’s why she feels sorry for people who are used to eating meat. Beef for 1,200 rubles (600 UAH) is now only bought by very wealthy people. The middle class has long since switched to chicken and cheap fish.

Went to catch pigeons for dinner

Ironic videos are circulating on social media about how Russians saw new food prices right after the New Year holidays. In one of them, a girl is surprised by the price of meat, puts the bag back, and then catches pigeons on the street, presumably for lunch.

The author of the channel “Budget and Tasty” conducted a survival experiment. She and her boyfriend decided to live very frugally for a week after the New Year – on 2 thousand rubles (1 thousand UAH).

For the week, we bought a head of cabbage, three tomatoes, an onion, several apples, 200 g of mushrooms, 0.5 kg of rice, 450 g of red lentils, 2 kg of flour, a pack of tea, a liter of milk, 2 packs of cheese, 700 g of pollock, chicken, and 800 g of pork.

Few people believed that such a budget could feed two adults to their hearts’ content, but Dasha had to cook constantly – bake a few potato pies, a few cheesecakes with cheese, fry a potato pancake for two, a few pancakes with apples and potatoes, stew cabbage with a small piece of pork, cook pilaf with chicken, and make six meatballs. But they survived.