YES, We Have Too Many Bananas

It was not the Kremlin or Red Square or St. Basil's that made Craig Jentz, a tourist from Minnesota, gape with awe during his recent visit to Moscow.


It was the bananas. and banana peels. They seemed to be everywhere, balanced carefully on walls and garbage bins or tossed carelessly onto the sidewalk - the remnants of Moscow's bananamania.


"This is the most curious thing I have seen", said Jentz, who photographed banana vendors, people eating bananas and piles of peels.


Bananas have long been a favorite of Muscovites. Lately, however, bananas seem to be taking over the city.


"The paradox is that in the past Moscow imported many more bananas", said Alexander Kalganov, head of the city food resources department.


According to Kalganov, the state banana import reached a peak of 30, 000 tons a year about five years ago and has decreased sharply since then. He said that bananas were not so visible before because all fruit was sold indoors in special state stores. Today, most of the state fruit shops have been closed and the fruit trade has been pushed onto the street.


But Kalganov said that it is difficult to say how many bananas are being imported today because much of the trade is private.


As bananas are not commercially grown in the former Soviet Union (Southern Abkhazia boasts banana palm trees, but the fruit never ripens), most of the bananas on sale in Moscow come from Latin America, primarily from Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil.


Ten banana vendors in Moscow said that they purchase bananas from wholesalers for about 900 rubles per kilogram and re-sell them on the street for 1, 000 to 1, 400 rubles a kilogram, depending on quality.


Because of their relatively high cost for most Russians, bananas have become a symbol of a rich and relaxed Western lifestyle.


It has become fashionable to stroll the streets of Moscow while lazily munching on a banana, as if to tell the world: "No big deal, I can afford it".


Unfortunately, the city cannot afford to clean Moscow's streets of the offspring of Muscovite's love affairs with bananas.


"We are very short on cleaning personnel as we cannot offer suitable compensations", said Lyudmila Zhuravlyova of the city communal property department.


She complained that the vendors ignore official pleas to keep the sidewalks clean.


The banana craze has also sprung spin-offs. Outside the 1905 Goda metro station, kiosk vendors each carry at least three varieties of banana liqueur.


But just why Muscovites love bananas is difficult to say. Yelena Simonova, buying a kilogram of bananas near the 1905 Goda metro station, said bananas are a novelty for her. "And they don't cause allergic reactions", she said.


So far, there seem to be few banana-related injuries, although the sight of someone slipping on a banana peel is becoming more common.


A receptionist at the Sklifosovsky Emergency Hospital said she has not admitted any patients suffering from banana mishaps.


"Slipping cases usually happen in winter when there is ice everywhere", the receptionist said.


But not everyone is infatuated with bananas. To assist the struggling Moscow Zoo, the head of the Moscow office of Emerson Electric sends bananas for the zoo's monkeys every week.


"He sends more than enough", said Natalya Istratova, a spokesperson for the zoo. "Our monkeys are sick of them".