Why the world’s biggest retailer struggles in Russia.

Then there's the question of corporate culture. Wal-Mart has learned the hard way that it doesn't always translate well. In 2006, it shuttered its operations in South Korea after a decade of incorrectly emphasizing dry goods when Koreans wanted food and beverages. In Germany, where Wal-Mart was already fighting an uphill battle in a very competitive market, it also faced problems of etiquette. Locals balked at other people bagging their groceries or smiling at them when they entered the store. (German men, apparently, thought they were being hit on.) It's also not hard to foresee how a line in Wal-Mart's employee manual stipulating that employees report rule-breaking would go over in Russia, a place where authority is a terrifying joke, interactions are highly personalized, and where ratting on someone is one of the gravest sins one can commit.

So that's the bad news for Wal-Mart. The "good" news is the same as at home: The financial crisis has hit Russia, too. The Russian stock market has lost more than 70 percent of its value this year and the construction industry is in crisis, as is the local credit market. Indeed, Wal-Mart may have some buying opportunities, because retail chains that have accumulated tremendous debt in the last few years are now finding it impossible to refinance. All of a sudden, properties that weren't up for sale because they were still young and profitable—or that were going for $2 billion—now cost half what they did three months ago. (A hint from Russian investment bank Troika Dialog's Anna Matveyeva: Buy a smaller chain that isn't politically connected enough to fall back on the government for a bailout. There is, for example, Kopeika—or "kopek"—which already has almost 500 stores and about that many millions in debt.)

And remember: The Russian consumer is still itching to spend and is still woefully underserved, crisis and all. Assuming that one hypermarket—a grocery-department store hybrid—serves about 100,000 people, Russia needs 1,400 of them to serve the entire country; it has 150. (A decade ago, there were none at all.) And neither is the market empty: French retailer Auchan has smoothed the way by hacking through some of Russia's notoriously thick red tape and figuring out how to navigate such a coded place, so Wal-Mart doesn't have to start from scratch.

For all the talk of nouveau Russians bathing in gold, there were only 33 billionaires before the crash. There are 140 million other Russians, whose per capita income was about $8,000. That's why the Ford Focus—not the custom-trimmed Maybach—is the country's most popular car. The average Russian is price-sensitive but also doesn't save much, spending about 80 percent of their income-and they're going to be even more cost-conscious now that their economy is on the rocks. "So far, the crisis hasn't touched the Russian consumer," says Zagvozdina. "It's still a huge market with very fast growth, and, in the next five years, I don't think Wal-Mart will be able to make do without Russia."

And, she adds, Wal-Mart's greeters might have a positive effect on Russia's particular brand of customer service: "Maybe the clerks will have more normal reactions to shoppers instead of looking at them like they're just random, annoying people milling about and demanding things."