in the early 1990, kodak entered russia. at the time, the country was deep in the middle of a turbulent transition from a communist run committed to pushing through the privatization of state'owned enterprises and economic reforms designed to establish competitive markets. kodak's entry into this market posed a number of challenges. russian consumers had little knowledge of kodak's products, and the consumer market for photography was very underdeveloped. moreover, apart from state'run stores that were generally poorly run, there was little or no infrastructure in place for distributing photographic equipment and films and for processing film. to compound matters, russian consumers were poor and unlikely to be able to afford all but the most in expensive cameras and films.