NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia — In this region of Siberia, long synonymous with gulags and hardship, shoppers mobbed an Ikea store last winter with the vigor of a miners’ riot. They loaded their outsize yellow shopping carts with clothes, housewares, appliances and small furniture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/bu...=1&oref=slogin
Of course the article fails to mention the shoppers are not ordinary Siberians. They are oil and other natural resource workers that work there.