A Minsk resident shared an unusual find from the Galleria shopping centre. At the Squirrel boutique, she spotted furry marmots wearing red scarves and decorated with fir branches and bells — adorable ornaments for the New Year table, priced at 10,200 Belarusian rubles (BYN) each ($3,400 at the National Bank’s exchange rate).
“I’m thinking of buying one on a thousand-year instalment plan. I’ll put it on the New Year table between some imitation caviar costing 5 BYN and a bottle of Soviet Champagne for 15,” the author of the post, nastasja_smile, jokes, asking other Threads users how to recover from this visual and financial shock.
“There’s something rather vacant about their expressions,” one commenter noted. The author of the post suggested it was disdain.
At 10,200 BYN, the ornament costs more than three average monthly salaries in Belarus before tax. The most productive Wildberries warehouse workers — for whose jobs Minsk residents queue overnight — would have to spend at least two months’ wages to buy just one of these marmots.
The Squirrel boutique at Galleria specialises in premium tableware, cutlery, home textiles, souvenirs and handmade figurines from European brands. Judging by the online catalogue on the boutique’s website, the marmots are expensive even by the store’s premium standards: a half-metre-tall “Santa with Rabbits” costs 2,080 BYN, while a “Deer with Silver-Plated Antlers” is priced at 825 BYN.