Penza, 23 December 2014. PenzaNews. Unstable currency situation boosts desire of people to safely invest available savings by any means, including buying home appliances, which is driven by a wish to gain a sense of security and maintain recently gained life quality, said Vyacheslav Shpakovsky, PhD in History, author of several scientific publications on advertising, PR and marketing, associate professor of “Communication management” department of Penza State University.

“This level is mostly associated with things like this [appliances, cars and so forth]. People believe obtaining these things can protect them from economic instability. However, the question remains what they will do with it after the situation stabilizes,” Vyacheslav Shpakovsky said in an interview to PenzaNews agency.

In his view, the behavior exhibited by Penza residents, who swept large household appliances off the store shelves over a single weekend, shows how the Russians in general to react to any economy-related event.

“For example, in 1978 when China attacked Vietnam I was saw how people bought macaroni, matches, grain, and then threw it in the trash, because macaroni got spoiled, and the grain become insect-infested. Their motivation was roughly as follows: China attacked Vietnam, we are going to help Vietnam, then Americans will help China, and the war begins. That is quite a primitive life approach. The same thing is happening now,” the expert explained his point of view.

He also compared the current situation to an unprecedented demand for iodine in the Penza region stores in 2004, after rumors about the accident at the Balakovo nuclear power plant.

“Then people bought and drank all the iodine, though they knew that would not save anyone if there had really been something serious. The same thing happened when the news reported that Ukraine had stopped supplying salt to the Russian market: the price of one pack of salt increased to 40 rubles for three days, and then it disappeared from the stores – all despite the fact that Russia has Elton and Baskunchak lakes with salt stock enough to last a lifetime, and everybody learned that in school. That is solely emotional, where people do something to protect themselves, but they choose to do it the wrong way,” Vyacheslav Shpakovsky said.

He also suggested that the information about the alleged possibility of imported goods price rise has no factual basis.

“Of course, everything containing import components will rise in price whether we like it or not. If the price of the dollar is growing, and the purchase of goods is carried out for this currency, then, of course, the cost will increase. Moreover, freak demand growth also affects it. Nevertheless, I can surely say that our prices are already many times higher than the real value. Sellers have already forced the prices up a lot, so I do not think imported products will be overpriced by several magnitudes,” the agency interlocutor said.