Large Russian Retailer Starts Selling Smuggled iPad 2 Officially and Even Advertises

I know that it’s not the 1^st of April today and we are much closer to May now but I could not help but check the calendar when I’ve read a title in the local news today: a well-known retailer announces availability of iPad 2 in the city where I live.

But the huge (I mean HUUUUGE) irony is that Apple does NOT sell iPad 2 in Russia officially. Only yesterday Russian news agencies reported that official sales of the gadget are further postponed and we should not expect to have them in the country before at least mid-summer.

This means that there is no single officially imported iPad 2 here – only those that have leaked through the border pretending to be intended for personal use. Though everyone understands that the vast majority of those iPads will be sold in various online stores that enjoy the luxury of poor control from the authorities because of the overall immaturity of e-commerce in Russia.

So while we keep on bragging about how Apple’s policy prevents people in Russia from buying gadgets while they are still hot, numerous online stores make profits selling gray iPad 2. I have now checked and the top model (64 GB WiFi + 3G) is offered online for amounts from $1,300 to $2,350 so everyone who is willing to buy a gadget now has enough chances to do so as all the models are offered in tons of online stores.

Yet those stores rarely claim to be fully legal – lack of inspections allows them to do some things that are not acceptable for brick and mortar establishments. But now imagine a large retailer actually launching sales of a gray iPad 2? And even more: advertising on a widely read local news source to drive sales of the gadget!

Now to me it looks like some VIP strip-bar starts advertising services of their dancers as actual prostitutes claiming that they have decided to offer such services despite them being illegal in Russia due to a huge and growing demand from their customers.

Yet this is exactly the explanation from the company’s representatives: they proudly report that availability of iPad 2 in their stores way before it becomes officially available anywhere else in Russia is the result of prompt and efficient actions of their team.

Now exactly what do they mean? That every salesperson gets sent to New York once a month to bring a suitcase of iPads here? Unfortunately I have not heard of any other means of iPad 2 entering Russia other than that otherwise called smuggling. And last time I checked it was a crime here.

Really, Russian love to Apple’s gadgets combined with Apple’s unwillingness to let us use these gadgets here soon after their release can result in the most awkward of situations and I will probably have some more reasons for a good laugh in the middle of an otherwise boring work day.

Via (in Russian)