WHEN Soviet television briefly screened Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo, it was not much of a hit. Most Russians have never seen a kangaroo outside a zoo.

But today, Russians are rated the world’s greatest lovers of the Australian marsupial — just as long as it is minced up and turned into sausages.

Australia’s trade department has divulged that Russia now consumes almost one third of all its kangaroo meat exports, more than any other country.

Last year alone Russia imported about £6 million worth of Australia’s 35 million kangaroos, according to Australian trade statistics. The meat now accounts for more than half of all Australian exports to Russia. A handful of exclusive Moscow restaurants serve kangaroo steak, but most of the meat ends up being turned into sausages in Russia’s poorer Far East.

“They were looking for lean, red meat at a good price, and kangaroo meat fitted the bill,” Gregory Klumov, head of the commercial section at the Australian Embassy in Moscow, said.

The roughly eight million residents of Russia’s Far East tend to have more eclectic culinary tastes because of historic meat shortages and the proximity of China and Japan, he said.

Russia has suffered a shortage of domestically produced meat since the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the state farm system. Cattle stocks have also halved in the past 15 years.

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