lbo-talk-digest V1 #7244

ChrisD(RJ) chrisd at russiajournal.com
Tue Jan 14 00:00:07 PST 2003


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 ----- Yeah, but I bet you 5 to 1 the driver already has another job. This is supplementary income. He's also going to use the car to taxi people around. He also owns his own apartment and doesn't pay utilities.

Though of course living standards between capital/smaller cities and city/country vary tremendously. Moscow is Luzhkov's Garden of Eden. It is a city of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Moscow plus Moskovskaya Oblast have literally HALF the money in Russia. Go 100 km outside of Moscow and you think, "Hey! All the BMW's have turned into horse-drawn carts! What gives?" I think Moscow, Leningrad Oblast and Tatarstan (three most prosperous Russian regions) together get about 80% of Russian money. (Then again, most people live in those regions, or down by Volgograd. Non-European Russia has just 8%of the population, despite its being well over the size of the US. Yakutia, which is the size of India, has just 100,000 people.).



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