I visited Russia in 2013 and 2014, and there were a lot of gritty places, but availability of modern retail shops, goods, etc. was basically the same as places in Europe at that time. My kid travelled there last summer and said the sanctions are having an impact, but a lot of it is on the order of, for example, McDonald's changing the sign outside to some knockoff brand and sourcing their ground beef and packaging from somewhere else.

I've heard that the "not decent" cities, or rural areas, are the worst. Any video of Moscow or St Petersburg is not a rebuttal to my statement.

DNS got its start in Siberia and has twice as many locations than Best Buy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_(retail_company)

Magnit (grocery chain) in Krasnodar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnit

Cities all over the country as small as 50k have these stores and their competitors where you can buy fresh Mexican avocados and sparkling new Korean appliances.

Or, if you don’t want to go in store you can buy any item under the sun on Wildberries, Ozon and have it delivered to your front door.

The fact that inventory in stores, or delivery apps exist does not help when a lot of people in rural Russia can't afford it, as one of the sibling comments points out.

I've also heard (from Russians) that water access in rural Russia is poor.

I've been to grocery stores in Moscow, btw.

Let me introduce you to “food deserts” in urban areas and poor rural areas in the USA.

Russia is huge, yes - there are some very isolated places with poor people and without some utilities.

There’s also a lot of weekend (part time) dacha summer houses that don’t have full utility hookups.

To use a washing machine you need access to running water, sewage and electricity. The first two of those are still not available in large parts of the country.

And large portions of the population still cannot afford one.

The intersection of those two frequently ends up in the army, as that is the only social mobility they know.