Trendy, up-market shops whose sales were driven by the conspicuous consumption of the once-carefree "new Russian" rich have also felt the pinch.

Big foreign retailers such as Finland's Stockmann seem determined to ride out the crisis although their sales have suffered like everyone else's.

"I knew things were getting tough when people started asking the prices of things...New Russians never worried about price tags before," said a clerk in a Moscow shop belonging to the fashion group Hugo Boss.

She said she hadn't rung up a sale in nearly two weeks."Before people would come in, point to what they wanted and hand over a credit card barely saying a word. Now they're peeking through the window or asking what's on sale."

For poorer Russians, who have born the brunt of seven years ofeconomic reforms, the difference is even more dramatic.

After recently making the rounds of her local stores, one Moscow pensioner said she had forgone buying what were now "luxury items" -- socks and oranges.

"That's a sure sign of how bad things have become," said one Western observer. "How can anyone expect stores to survive when oranges have become a luxury all over again here?"

Panic buying at the start of the crisis, triggered by a rouble devaluation on August 17, softened the initial effect on retailers by fuelling sales that month of nearly 85 billion roubles ($5.2 billion), up 5.4 per cent over August 1997.

But the rouble's slide made the dollar value of those sales worth just half the monthly pre-crisis average of $12 billion, when the exchange rate was at around six roubles to the dollar.

"Of course the crisis has had an effect on our business, a serious effect," said a member of the sales department at sportswear shop Adidas Moscow-Ltd. "Now we wait and hope things will get better butthat's not easy right now."

It's a bitter blow for an industry that had not long ago been hailed as a leading sector after a decade of growth that saw cavernous shops stocked with shoddy Soviet goods evolve into glittering boutiques under top retail names.

The State Statistics Committee said 1997 retail turnover in Moscow alone grew 9.8 per cent over the previous year and helped fuel development of retail property all over the country.But as customers disappear, many retailers are struggling to pay for goods to stock increasingly bare shelves.

"Things are pretty grim," said a leasing agent for a major department store scheduled to open in Moscow later this year. "Too many of the companies that we had deals with are calling to say no, that they have to rethink their position on the Russian market...I don't know how we'll be able to open."

While most big-name retailers refused comment on how the crisis had hit them, analysts doubted many could avoid problems.

"Those retailers that hadn't felt the fullseverity of the crisis before are certainly feeling it now," said MFK Renaissance retail analyst Kim Iskyan.

"Fewer customers are coming in their doors and less is on the shelves to interest those who do... Many (retailers) will shut down if there isn't some good news soon," he said.