Mrs. Bogaslovskaya buys several kilos of potatoes in the fall and cans pint after pint of sauerkraut. Her winter diet will consist of sauerkraut, potatoes, bread, and tea. An increasing number of elderly people can be spotted on Moscow's streets begging for small change to help buy food. Others pick up empty beer bottles off the sidewalks or from trash containers to trade them in for refunds that supplement their food budgets. Cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables are canned or pickled.
Preserved mushrooms take the place of meat, showing up alongside potatoes or in soup.
Last year dacha gardens owned by city dwellers and private plots of the rural population provided more than 80 percent of all the potatoes and vegetables grown in Russia and about a third of all meat and milk. Because of a drought, Russia's crop harvest this year is expected to be the worst in more than 30 years. The grain harvest is expected to be down by 40 percent-the smallest harvest since 1957. Potatoes, an important staple food in the Russian diet, grew poorly, producing a yield low in both number and quality. The sugar beet harvest dipped only slightly from last year, which was the worst in 30 years.