The fact that tourists can't decide which souvenir best represents the place they visited shows the weakness of the local brand, said Sergei Mitrofanov, general director of Brandflight Moscow, which rebranded Tbilisi and Batumi and is currently working on a post-New Year image for Veliky Ustyug, the officially approved home of Grandfather Frost. It is not only the foreigners who are baffled by Russian symbolism. Natives themselves know little about their motherland, Mitrofanov said.
