ИСТИНА

On March 30 Russian government introduced lockdown-like measures called the ‘non-working’ days. This regime and its prolongation for the whole spring alongside the introduction of strict measures preventing free movement around cities led to a dramatic decrease in demand for services, especially in HoReCa industry. Consequently, earnings of these facilities dropped and this led to an outburst on the commercial property market — companies just couldn’t afford to pay for public services and rent. It this paper we examine the first empirical evidence of the crisis on the commercial property market. For this purposes, a longitudinal analysis of commercial properties available on market was held. Based on CIAN data it was shown that the market reactions to the crisis were uneven between major cities and were dependent on geographical proximity to the state’s capital, Moscow, and to the Chinese border. The spatial context within cities shows that the most significant increase in commercial property supply is observed in the most developed central parts of cities. So this evidence also shows the significance of the influence of this particular crisis on the cities economies as a whole.