Do these brands look familiar? Russia reinvents stores after Western firms pulled out of the country - so can you tell what these shops were originally?

Russia has reinvented its stores after Western firms have pulled out of the country following Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Footage reveals that products by Western companies are still readily available in Russian shops – but the storefronts are now signposted with a different brand name.

Even luxury brands are still represented in Russian shopping malls, as are newly-released Apple products.

But can you tell what the below shops were before?

Which tech company’s store has been renamed as ‘re:Store’?

It is Apple! The ‘re:Store’ shop still features new products like the Vision Pro goggles

Can you guess which Western brand this is? It has been reinvented in Russia as ‘Pan Club’

It is Pandora! Despite now being called ‘Pan Club’, the shop in Moscow still had ‘Pandora’ written next to the jewellery

Can you guess for which Western company Russia created this new logo?

It is Lego! The new logo was created for the rebranded shop, which is now called ‘Cube World’ and still offers Lego products inside

Can you spot which Western brand was reinvented as ‘NSP’?

It is Nike! The sportswear brand has been reinvented as ‘NSP’ in Russia but still displays Nike’s ‘tick’ logo in store

Which footwear company has been reinvented as ‘Bootwood’ in Russia?

It is Timberland! The shoes sold in ‘Bootwood’ stores still feature the Timberland logo

In a video seen by nearly three million people, content creator Thomas Moore, 31, showed his viewers the rebranded storefronts and explained in a voiceover that shops still sell the same products.

He featured more than ten different shops at the Aviapark shopping centre in Moscow, which houses more than 500 stores.

On his recent trip to Russia, Thomas, also known as Tom from Texas online, said he was ‘very surprised to find that almost every store is open, or has been rebranded.’

Before making the journey, he said that he ‘thought there would be so many stores closed down and that it would be very difficult to find a number of household items.’

But his Russian fiancé, fellow content creator Nastya Abroad, said ‘there’s really no difference’ in shopping in Russia now versus before the war.

‘It was surprising when I first went to Russia [a year ago] and saw that the economy was moving along fine,’ Tom said after he read that several Western firms like McDonalds, Coca Cola and Adidas were pulling out of Russia.

Him and Nastya visited the Aviapark shopping centre, where several shops that have a striking similarity with the Western brands that left Russia.

Which popular restaurant chain do you believe this logo belongs to?

It’s McDonald’s! In the reinvented restaurants, the ‘M’ was kept – although in a different font – and the colour scheme was slightly adjusted from bright yellow to orange and red tones

Do you recognise this clothing store, which has been renamed as ‘MAAG’ in Russia?

It is ZARA! Thomas said the clothes were in the exact same store the Western brand had before

Which brand name could ‘JNS’ have replaced? The clue is in the name!

It is Levi’s! A big sign reading ‘Levi’s’ is positioned right behind a ‘JNS’ one – as Thomas said: ‘They don’t even hide it’

Content creator Thomas Moore aka Tom from Texas, right, with his fiancé, fellow blogger Nastya Abroad, left

Can you figure out which fast food chain was renamed to ‘Rostic’s’?

It is KFC! The branding of ‘Rostic’s’ still features red and white buckets with fried chicken inside, just like KFC

Does this store look familiar? It was renamed as ‘Isle of Beauty’ or ‘Ile De Bote’ in Russian, but can you guess the original brand name?

It is Sephora! The beauty store in Russia still sells Sephora Collection items, despite not being called Sephora anymore

Does this look familiar? Which well-known coffee shop chain has been turned into ‘Stars Coffee’?

It is Starbucks! The logo, which stayed very close to the original Starbucks one, also features a woman in a circled frame

Tom from Texas, who has over ten million likes on TikTok, said the shops still bore their original names when he visited last year, but he saw ‘big changes’ when he returned last month.

He said: ‘I didn’t really [notice the sanctions]. A year ago some storefronts were closed because they hadn’t yet replaced them.

READ MORE: Sanctions on Moscow have hurt European economies while Russia’s has GROWN – and have only encouraged Putin to form stronger ties with China and be more aggressive towards the West 

‘But when you went to the supermarket, the shelves were stocked 100%. Anything you wanted you could still find.

‘There aren’t any closed stores now – [Russia] either imports original from the neighbouring countries like Belarus, Kazakhstan, or China, or they just came up with a new brand that sells almost identical products.’

He said one product he couldn’t find a year ago was Coca Cola, but the popular brand has since been replaced by different Russian copycat versions or imported bottles and cans from Poland, Czech Republic, Georgia, and China.

The 31-year-old from Texas, US, said: ‘There are so many [brands operating under a different name] honestly. LUSH became OOMPH. Sephora became Ile De Bote.

‘Levis is JNS. Zara is MAAG. The entire Zara group of companies left but they have a new name for all of them now.’

Thomas said that due to parallel imports, he would still see people ‘carrying the new Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Dior [bags] on the street in Moscow’ – despite the luxury brands leaving Russia about three years ago.

Parallel imports are what the International Trade Association defines as ‘branded goods that are imported into a market and sold there without the trademark owner’s consent in that market’.

Thomas shows dozens of drinks brands who have replaced Coca Cola in Russia

Russians can also buy original Coca Cola, which is imported from neighbouring countries like Poland or China

Thomas said that due to parallel imports, he would still see people ‘carrying the new Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Dior [bags] on the street in Moscow’ – despite the luxury brands leaving Russia about three years ago (pictured above are Valentino bags)

Instead of facing massive markups on products, Thomas said he was surprised to see that shopping in Russia ‘actually got cheaper’.

He added: ‘While the US, UK, EU and most of the world experienced a lot of inflation in the last three years, the prices stayed almost the same in Russia.’

‘It’s actually easier to get an iPhone for a normal price today than it was before the sanctions because they brought down the taxes.’

The American traveller said he only really noticed price increases on luxury items.

‘Luxury brands are more expensive because it’s harder to get a large quantity and they took a harder line about the sanctions than the consumer brands from what I see,’ he theorised.

Parallel imports, like Thomas mentioned for luxury brands, could soon be a thing of the past, as retailers told Russian newspaper Kommersant that some European companies have already started to block them.

This comes as the European Commission has called for companies to actively make their products inaccessible to parallel imports and a newly-introduced ‘no re-export to Russia’ clause even requires companies to add this to their contracts.

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