The One and Only Barbie Goes to Russia : Toys: She costs around 1,900 rubles, the equivalent of about one month’s salary. Little girls dream of owning her, parents of affording her.

Since the beginning of summer vacation, clusters of little girls from all over the former Soviet Union have been sighing at the window of Moscow’s most famous toy store, Detsky Mir.

In contrast to the mud-toned toy trucks and the complicated paper games, one section of the display features an explosion of the blinding pink cars and opalescent carriages and blond curls and sparkling fake jewels that could herald the arrival of the one and only, the amazing Barbie.

“I love her,” whispered 5-year-old Katia Vanichkina, who stared at one display of Barbies that, given her parents’ income, might just as well have been the crown jewels.

“We just wanted to have a look,” said Katia’s mother, Rita Vanichkina, who works in a factory. “That’s all.”

Nearby, Russian bioengineer Zoia Mayevskaya and her 10-year-old daughter Olga were also staring past the glass cases that separate an array of Barbies from their yearning public.

“It’s like a month’s salary,” said Mayevskaya, shaking her head. She makes 2,500 rubles, or less than $25, a month. In most cases, Barbie comes with a price tag of 1,900 rubles--roughly twice the U.S. price tag of $7 for the bottom-of-the-line Barbie. The price for Barbie’s van can run as much as three times Mayevskaya’s monthly salary.

“But she does have one Barbie,” Mayevskaya said proudly of her daughter. It was made in Germany. And it was only a third of a month’s salary, bought at the street market for slightly less than those in the stores. “She is very, very beautiful, and someday we can buy clothes and wear clothes just like hers.”

The love affair with Barbie in the new Russia is not an isolated example of this country’s fascination with all things Western. Hawkers on the streets tempt Russian buyers by saying: “It’s not Russian; it’s not Chinese. It’s from the U.S.A.”

Beers like Heineken and Tuborg, along with another curious brand labeled American Beer, are a big hit; even the empty cans are sold on the streets occasionally. Haagen-Dazs is here, as is Diet Coke. Fords and Porsches are now being sold, albeit for carloads of rubles. A fully outfitted American vehicle can draw crowds on the streets as people marvel at Western cars not driven by Westerners--all of whom are expected to be so rich--but by fellow Russians.

For years, Soviet citizens have hoarded Western jeans and listened to Western music and idolized such technological advancements as tear-proof mascara or fax machines that really work. The lusting for the West is free and open, but it is also openly disturbing to many of those who want to preserve the Russian soul or protect the new Russian consumer.

With the hordes of Westerners coming in and offering products openly--and for rubles rather than precious hard currency--this huge new market is falling prey to the seductions of Madison Avenue. Packaging and bright colors and fake designer patches make all the difference. But if Westerners try to warn that some products can be worthless even with a “Made in the U.S.A.” label, Russian customers don’t seem to pay any attention. When asked whether Barbie wasn’t teaching their children a few bad lessons, such as the idea that sequins and blond hair and conspicuous consumption bring happiness, the Russians look blank and confused.

To one Russian woman staring at a Barbie wearing a huge, pink glittering dress and standing beside a pink, plastic Ferrari, I asked whether she thought all Americans looked like that.

“Don’t they?” she responded nodding her head in the affirmative.

If Barbie looks fresh off the beaches of Southern California, the standard Soviet doll conjures the image of someone at the end of a production line in Minsk. The dolls look sturdy and wholesome and homely. They are wearing simple aprons or small, lackluster dresses.

The main concession to childhood for these sad creatures is that they often have pink or blue hair.

In some of the more traditional toy stores in Moscow, there is a certain resentment about how quickly the nation’s young have deserted this bulkier doll for the slim lines of Barbie or Cindy or their shapely friends.

Russian toy manufacturers have tried to come up with their own version of Barbie, creating the same general form and a shock of blond hair. Even the merchants who sell this Barbie-like creature don’t try to compare the Mattel Inc. version with the Veronika or Natasha created here in Moscow.

Outside one Moscow toy store, Zoia Smirnova was selling the Russian Veronika for 300 rubles.

“This is a lower quality than Barbie,” she acknowledged, noting the drab, blue dress and thin, blond hair that must have about a fifth as many strands as Barbie’s.

“But after the children look at Barbie and the parents see the prices, they come here,” Smirnova said.

Some pay the price for a real Barbie anyway.

“My husband and I have just started vacation, and before vacation you always get a month’s salary in advance. So we put ours together and--because we are not going anywhere this year and will spend the vacation with our parents--we can buy it,” said Galina Gutovskaya.

The Barbie their 10-year-old daughter wanted cost 1,690 rubles. Would that wipe out the vacation checks? she was asked.

Gutovskaya nodded and shrugged her shoulders helplessly: “My daughter is suffering without her.”

New Market Is Still Small

The arrival of Barbie in Russia is much less of a spectacle in the Mattel headquarters in El Segundo than it is in Moscow. Donna Gibbs, director of media relations for Mattel, said that since Barbie was introduced to the world’s children in 1959, an estimated 700 million dolls have been sold. Now marketed in more than 100 countries around the world, more than 65 million Barbies will be sold this year--or about two every second.

Russia, with its 30 to 35 outlets, is still small potatoes.