lbo-talk-digest V1 #7244

[ChrisD(RJ)]

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.).