It can be both. You can know intellectually that the Americans have a higher standard of living than Russians, and still be surprised by what that really means, at a practical level, for ordinary people.
Right, and also why would he care so much about grocery stores in America when he's in Russia and reviewing military and diplomatic intel about the US? "They have grocery stores that have more items than our stores" - boring. "A US diplomat was arrested and released in Latin America for something he did while drunk" - interesting.
Everything is fundamentally driven by the economy, so having even a glimpse of that economy in practice (eg: a supermarket) is essential to drawing a more accurate picture of the wider military and geopolitics.
If your foe can demand bananas any day of the year for pennies while you can't, you lost that war before it even started.
