> ---
> My experience in early 2000's Moscow completely contradicts
> this. People in Moscow restaurants are not tourists or mafia.
> They are middle-class people who work for advertising
> deportments, human resource departments, computer
> programmers. Hell, a waitress in Moscow can pull in $2,000 a month.
>
Unlike in US, capital cities are very much above the rest of the country in Eastern Europe (just like in Mexico). In Leningrad, I saw job ads for drivers offering Rb5,500 (US $ 180) per month. My sister who teaches at a university in Gdansk earns less than my daughter who works at an office in Warsaw. Paychecks vary greatly by region.
Wojtek