Shoe Shopping in Russia…

Рязанской обувной фабрики...

Sveta and I have a real issue in Russia finding shoes to fit me. I wear a size 49 Russian style and that equates into a size 14 and a half, American style…

In America sometimes I could find my size in a good work shoe from Dr. Sholl’s and they were made in China. I worked in greasy and slippery areas a lot. I also was on my feet 14 to 16 hours a day. So Dr. Sholl’s was a fantastic cheap shoe that could be bought at K-Mart or Wall-Mart. I have finally wore out  my last good pair of shoes from America…

Sveta has always bought her shoes at the metro markets that are so common in Moscow at the entrances and exits of all the Metro stations all over Moscow. Sveta likes to buy shoes from Belarus and not China. But the Metro shoe kiosks with Belarus shoes do not have anything close that will fit a big footed guy like me. In fact when we would ask everyone about size 48 0r 49 shoes we just got blank stares in return, like we came from another planet, No one had feet that big… 🙂

I knew better than the fact that there would be no shoes to fit me in Russia. Sveta had decided the best bet would be to try to get a friend in America to help buy a pair of shoes for me. (Het – That is not what I wanted to wear on my feet. Chinese made Dr Sholl’s! I live in Russia and wanted Russian shoes…) So Sveta and I went on a shoe hunt…

What we found to satisfy my grouchy bear grumpiness, was a fantastic shoe factory in Ryazan. Ryazan is a large city we travel through to get to our village. We found that a Russian-German footwear factory had been established after WWI and was called the Ryazan Shoe Factory. The factory traces its history back to November of 1922…

http://www.ryazanwest.ru/ This is a link to the website that we found for shoes for me…

It turned out a simple matter to detour just a little bit in our village travels and we discovered a shoe factory that was able to satisfy my needs for a great real leather shoe that is as comfortable as any shoe that I have ever had. They also have a 70 day no questioned ask warranty. Plus the price was spot on…

I was inquisitive about why these shoes were not being marketed in Moscow. We found out that to do business in Moscoe is a whole other world, that involves a complete set of exaggerated rules…

Other words, It just ain’t worth fighting with the Moscow bureaucracy… 🙂

So I am pleased with my shoes and have no reason not to shop at this factory. Besides it is only about 250km from our home…

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