Russia is slowly running out of keyboards it can use
pcgamer.comHaving to use a keyboard that doesn't use a standard UK layout instantly turns me into a 90 year old man. Where normally my hands glide over the keys with robotic rhythm, I'm reduced to hunting and pecking for every character, slowing my work to a crawl. I can relate, then, to Russian PC users, who are finding it harder and harder to get their hands on Russian keyboards under the country's sanctions-circumventing 'parallel imports' scheme, per a Kommersant report(opens in new tab).
Russia published its list of brands for 'parallel import' at the beginning of May(opens in new tab), in response to ever-mounting western sanctions and the departure of countless tech companies(opens in new tab) following its invasion of Ukraine. The system permits Russian companies to purchase restricted goods from outside Russia, provided they were acquired legally in the country they're being bought from.
It's a pretty weird system to explain in abstract terms, so here's a concrete example: Apple products are no longer sold in Russia, but Russian retailers that want to keep selling Macs and iPhones are permitted by the parallel import scheme to purchase Apple products from vendors in countries where the company still does business. Russian businesses can't acquire Russian-formatted devices directly from Apple, but they can approach third parties based in China, Serbia, or elsewhere and stock up that way. The problem is that those devices are going to be set up for Chinese and Serbian users, including their keyboards.
It's playing havoc with Russian workflows from Bryansk to Vladivostok, and it's even got the government in a spin. The contracts that Russian government departments have with their workers require that everyone gets a
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