Moscow Costs but Pays
By Sean at 28 January, 2008, 1:23 am
The fact that Moscow is expensive city is well known. For the second consecutive year, the Cost of Living Survey, which is conducted by the Mercer Human Resource Consulting has ranked Russia’s capital as the most expensive city in the world. Expensive it is. For western expatriates. But what of the millions of Russians who live there? How much does it take to survive the mean Moscow streets?
Figures released by the Moscow City government say that a minimum of 6,500 rubles ($266) a month is necessary to live in Moscow. A tripartite Moscow commission placed their minimum a bit higher at 8,000 rubles ($327). But as Nezamisimaya gazeta points out, most experts note that this government “minimum” is based on the the government idea of the rock bottom necessary for a person to live. That means a person who is “not dying from hunger, lice free, and doesn’t go naked or barefoot.” In addition to this the Russian government includes a “minimum subsistence basket” of foodstuff and services. “What goes into this basket?” NG asks.
The minimum set of services includes working utilities and 18 square meters of living space. The minimum set of “non-food” goods are clothes, shoes, linen, furniture, housewares, the necessities of life, hygiene and medicine. It is necessary to have nine pairs of underwear over 2.4 years, seven pairs of hosiery over a year, and six pairs of shoes over 3.2 years.
For a comparison, in Great Britain a mobile phone, an mp3 player, a digital radio, and a DVD recorder and a host of other digital products are added to the subsistence basket.
Those are two very different notions of minimum subsistence. It’s no wonder that many accuse the West of decadence.
The Russian calculation of minimum subsistence is nothing to praise. There is nothing noble in poverty. Nor is there anything pretty in inflation, a problem that has been hitting Russia for almost a year now. Between 2004 to the final quarter of 2007, the cost of living for employed Muscovites rose from 4265 rubles ($173) to 6563 rubles ($267). For lowest on the economic ladder, the elderly and children, the cost of living went up in the same period 2531 ($103) to 3983 rubles ($161) and 3377 ($137) to 4934 rubles ($200) respectively. Moreover, estimates from 2006 put 1.3 million Muscovites living at the lowest income level out of a population of 10.5 million. This number has dropped in the last three years by 160,000 people. This trend is being reproduced across the country. From the beginning of 2005 to the last quarter of 2007, the number of people living in poverty has dropped from 24.5 percent to 15.8 percent. And people still wonder why Putin, and now Medvedev by association, is so popular.
It may be expensive for Russians to live in Moscow but it seems that they are making the money to do so. The median income for Muscovites as of October 2007 is 23,873 rubles a month. From that they spend an average of 67 percent (15,995) of their income of foodstuffs. That’s over twice what the government says is necessary to live at minimum subsistence. Still most Muscovites seem live somewhat cautiously. The average amount of their monthly salary they devote to savings and buying foreign currency is 8.8 percent (2100 rubles) and 8.4 percent (2005) rubles.
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For western expatriates.
And doubly so for visiting western journalists, who must make absolutely sure a room in the Park Hyatt costs $600 per night, their lobster cost $200, and a lap dance does set them back $400.
They rarely mention that a trip on the metro costs $0.30, which must be the cheapest metro ticket in any capital.
“in Great Britain a mobile phone, an mp3 player, a digital radio, and a DVD recorder and a host of other digital products are added to the subsistence basket.”
Is this actually true?
“medium income”
Do you mean average income, or median income?
Come to think of it, who came up with the alleged British subsistence basket? Using the magic of googling “Poverty in Britain,” I get a lot of different subsistence baskets depending on who was doing the study.
Incidentally, Britain is a complete and utter rip-off on almost every measure. Never have I been somewhere, except maybe Istanbul, where you have to pay so much for so little of so poor quality.
I’ve never been there, outside of Heath Row airport. but Britain is sounding to me more and more like a squallid dystopia all the time.
Seriously Tim, if an Engliah-language editor wanted to look around for work in the provinces, do you think he would have much luck? I’ve idly thought of doing that on a number of occasions.
I meant “median” my mistake. Though I wonder if NG meant average. I translated “среднее” as median because I figured that amount was too high to be an average. Maybe I’m wrong.
I don’t actually think the British example NG cited is true. It was late and I didn’t look into it. I have no idea where NG got that info.
I think the amount is realistic.
Seriously Tim, if an Engliah-language editor wanted to look around for work in the provinces, do you think he would have much luck?
None. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk probably has the highest density of English speakers in Russia, yet there are only one or two minor English language (Eng. Lang.!) publications, which are not very well produced, and appear on a fortnightly basis. I’d guess that outside of Moscow or St. Petersburg, you’d struggle.
See, this is yet another instance of the Eng. lang. mass media excluding those who will correct their parallel biases.
“…and a lap dance does set them back $400.”
That seems rather a lot for a dose of the clap.
Cost of living varies enormously depending on your life style. If you dont drive or use modern electronic gadgets you are in a completely different situation to someone who does. In France they are setting up a system on line where you can work out your own figures depending on how you live.
“a lot of different subsistence baskets depending on who was doing the study.”
The last part of the sentence explains everything
Incidentally, Britain is a complete and utter rip-off on almost every measure. Never have I been somewhere, except maybe Istanbul, where you have to pay so much for so little of so poor quality.
I had some contact with UK firms, regarding geotechnical engineering positions in the past year. I came away with the distinct impression that I would have to lower my standard of living and/or disposable income in order to take a job in the UK.
I knew a woman who purchased a pub in London (pub was downstairs, she lived upstairs) and I recall that she essentially had to acquire one mortgage from the bank, and then had a separate deal for the remainder of the purchase price with some sort of real-estate investment company. She made this sound common place in and around London, due to the high price of real estate. It sounded rather like 2 mortgages to me.
“They rarely mention that a trip on the metro costs $0.30…”
The standard fare for a one-way trip is now 19 rubles, which is about 75 or 80 cents. (That gets down to 14 rubles for a 20-trip ticket). Still cheaper than most European cities, but…
A very large percentage of the population gets thgem at a discount or free, though.
Some of these benefits are staggering. Due to her status as a widow, a friend of mine gets a free trip anywhere in Russia once a year.
sean wrote: “I meant “median” my mistake. Though I wonder if NG meant average. I translated “среднее” as median because I figured that amount was too high to be an average. Maybe I’m wrong.”
’srendiy’ as in statistical income is always translated as average or mean. ‘median’ here would be mediannyi in russian. the cost-of-living and subsistence basket methodology currently in use in russia does not use ‘median income’ as a concept at all. instead, average or mean income is used throughout.
u think just a shade over usd 1,000 is high for average income? i think it’s too low, for moscow anyway. i would have thought in moscow it would be at least twice as high, considering how mind-bogglingly expensive the city is. every time business brings me to moscow, i have to fork out an equivalent of 200 dollars on hotel accommodation to get something cockroach-free with running hot water. and eating out is prohibitively expensive. i have not seen a half-way decent eatery in town where a dinner would not set u back 100 dollars. even for that money u’d get condescending service at best. which is of course preferable by a mile to the obnoxious service replete with insults less expensive chow joints have the habit of treating their customers to.
so, 1,000 bucks does not sound like much. as a reference point, the mean income in astana is 130,000 tenge, which is about 1,100 dollars. i would never have guessed we were as rich as moscow by the looks of it.
You can easily find a good restaurant in Moscow for _far_ under $100 a dinner (1 person). In the center no less. I don’t think I have ever spent that much money.
Moscow has large numbers of teachers, doctors, illegal aliens, and most importantly pensioners, none of whom earn squat. I think $1100 is about right.
chris, care to name a few of those? that would mean significant savings for me, as restaurants make quite a sizable dent in my travel budget every time i’m in moscow
also, average means practically squat in income statistics. all those billionaires, of whom moscow has 40-50-60, skew it way off the mark. median would be a much better indicator, with median being the half-way point where half the poluation earns more and the other half less. for populations with assymetrical income distributions, of which moscow is a prime example, median income gives a clearer picture of real salaries and wages. and the median income for the city of moscow should be much lower than the mean income value quoted. using mean income as a gauge of poverty and socio-economic trends is a legacy tool, a leftover from the soviet days when income distributions were uniform and when mean and median were always nearly identical. with the growing income inequality, however, mean has lost much sense statistically. it gives no significant clue as to the money flow the average moscovite has. i don’t know about moscow, but for astana the mean income is 130,000 tenge, and median is about 75,000(one buck buys approximately 120 tenge), the spread pointing to a handful of ultra-rich lording it over the huddled masses living from paycheck to paycheck.
Pretty much anyplace you go to around Kuznetsky Most. I don’t know what your idea is of good dining, but you can get a good meal at Das Kapital for about $30, and there is a whole strip of places on that street the name of which I can’t remember going down from the metro toward Teatralnaya — Pinnochio pizzeria, a couple of other Italian places, a Chinese place, a French restaurant — loads of stuff.
RBC, 31.01.2008, Moscow 14:49:38.Russia’s GDP went up 8.1 percent to nearly RUB 32.989 trillion (approx. USD 1.35 trillion) in 2007, the Russian Federal State Statistics Service reported today on the basis of preliminary calculation of GDP growth.
http://rbcnews.com/free/20080131144938.shtml
last year Russia’s gdp was USD 0,986 trillion, so it grew around 37% in nominal dollar terms
The standard fare for a one-way trip is now 19 rubles, which is about 75 or 80 cents.
Apologies, I’d dicked up my exchange rates.
Something fresh
http://people.monstersandcritics.com/news/
article_1389378.php/
Russia_blocks_Clooney_from_debate_on_peacekeepers
One of the reasons why I rarely stay more than two or three nights in Moscow is the relatively high price of hotel rooms. I can afford a relatively nice place at $200 to $300 a night (price range of the sort of place that I typically target) but feels rather foolishly over-expensive compared to hotel prices in other areas in Russia. It certainly doesn’t match up with the typical Russian’s average income, even with increasing prosperity.
That being said, if you are looking for a cheaper hotel room, I’d look at the Izmailovo Hotels (Alpha, Beta, Vega, Gamma-Delta) which you should be able to find for less than $100 a night (actually with the exchange rate now, likely just over $100 a night).
If I planned to stay in Moscow for more than a couple of nights, I’d likely investigate renting an apartment.
As for places to eat, Way-to-Russia is a rather good resource.
Restaurants here: http://www.waytorussia.net/Moscow/Eat.html
Recommended clubs here: http://www.waytorussia.net/Moscow/Clubs.html
Ok, Ok, we know what you really want is directions to Night Flight: http://www.waytorussia.net/Moscow/ClubsStrip.html
Not to pimp Way-To-Russia too much, but I just noticed they are doing hotel and B&B reservations, supposedly reasonable rates:
http://www.waytorussia.net/Services/Accommodation.html
Incidentally, according to some sources, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is the second most expensive city in Russia after Moscow. People here sell their apartments and buy in Petersburg.
See here: http://vladivostoktimes.ru:80/show.php?id=19997
A decent hotel here will set you back $200 per night, and you can’t even claim you’re within 1,000 miles of a decent theatre.
FWIW, judging by the “We’re Hiring!” sign I saw today at Stardog’s, $1100 is about what a hot-dog vendor in a kiosk makes in Moscow.
McDonald’s has this employment propaganda that “Makdonaldz platit bolshe chem dumaete!” Supposedly three months of working at Mickey D’s will pay for a year at university.
See? (Please note that you need to speak Russian to apply for this job, so Averko will have little luck):
ЦЕНТР ПО ПРИЕМУ НА РАБОТУ
«МАКДОНАЛДС»
(495) 755-66-33
Адрес: м. Смоленская,
Б. Николопесковский пер. 15
стр. 2
Часы работы:
Пн – пт c 9:00 – 20:00
Сб с 10:00 – 16:00
Воскр – выходной
Макдоналдс платит больше, чем ты думаешь! За месяц работы в Макдоналдс, ты спокойно купишь себе ноутбук, плазменную панель, стильные шмотки или что-то еще! К тому же, тебя ждут разнообразные бонусы.
ЦЕНИ СВОЕ ВРЕМЯ
Вместе с возможностью заработать денег мы предоставляем гибкий график, чтобы не приходилось выбирать между работой и учебой, а еще, так как в основном мы работаем с молодежью, тебя ждет множество веселых мероприятий и шансов проявить себя в самых разных областях.
РАСТИ
У каждого равные возможности устроиться к нам на работу или, если ты уже работаешь, получить прибавку к зарплате и повышение в должности. Помни: что единственное, что может повлиять на твое продвижение по карьерной лестнице, — твоя активность, энергичность и к новым достижениям.
ПРИСОЕДИНЯЙСЯ
Да, работа не простая, но она закаляет дух, и дает навыки, которые будут весьма полезны в дальнейшей жизни. Ты можешь прямо сейчас заполнить анкету и отправить ее нам. Если ты ценишь свое время, Макдоналдс — твое место работы.
http://www.mcdonalds.ru/index.html?he_id=340
“… тебя ждет множество веселых мероприятий и шансов проявить себя в самых разных областях.”
“Да, работа не простая, но она закаляет дух, и дает навыки, которые будут весьма полезны в дальнейшей жизни.”
Is that for flipping hamburgers?
I’m certainly behind the times and don’t have a ноутбук. Maybe I should apply and work there for a month. They probably don’t hire illegals, though…
“Is that for flipping hamburgers?”
Burger-flipping gives one many valuable skills! It can be used in one’s future tennis career, for instance.