Russian Blog
This is a blog by JustRussian about learning Russian. You will find useful tips for learning Russian, Russian courses available in London, information about Russian culture and links to websites with information for students of Russian.
Facts and figures: Is Moscow really the most expensive city in the world?
By Vlada 31 May 08
Facts about life in Moscow from a Russian teacher in London, or something you may be interested to know but won’t learn in a Russian course.
I am a Muscovite and I’ve never lost touch with my city or my family and friends all the years I’ve lived in London. And in the last couple of years I keep hearing, from my students and from the media that Moscow is the most expensive city in the world. And every time I think: surely, it’s some mistake? It’s one of those ‘truths’ created by foreign visitors and ex-pats working in Moscow, the luckless victims of “they saw them coming”, who get charged top dollar for the simplest services and goods. I’ve always thought that nothing can compare with the high cost of living in London! Is Moscow really that expensive?
Last time I was there (a few days ago), feeling quite rich while paying Moscow prices being used to London ones, I decided to have a look at some bills and write down pure facts and figures.
Fact 1: Ordinary Muscovites have more disposable income than Londoners.
Income tax is 12%. People don’t have mortgages or expensive insurances, they don’t pay a huge council tax. Most people don’t take out loans or use credit cards. Being in debt is thought to be scary. Interest rates on mortgages and loans are huge – up to 40% (it’s a new thing, there is no culture of borrowing money from banks, people don’t have a credit history or rating, and the Western-style banking system is only developing at the moment). People live in flats given to them by the Soviet state for free, or they’re inherited from families who got it from the state for free. The flats are small but they are free of rent or mortgage.
Fact 2: All utility bills are subsidised by the city council, for households where 1 person has up to 33sq metres of living space (and most people have less). Repairs to the communal areas and maintenance of buildings are paid for by the council. Rubbish is disposed of via garbage shoots, on the American system. The trash flies into the basement and is collected every day. Hot water is unlimited (you can run it all day and it won’t run out!), it can be metered (see below) or paid for on a small fixed charge.
Fact 3: Heating is communal. Water for radiators is heated in gigantic boilers in separate buildings and pumped to blocks of flats. Central heating is switched on in October and switched off in April. It cannot be adjusted in every individual flat, so if you are too hot you open the window, and if you are too cold you can use an additional electric heater. The central area of Moscow is heated best, with an average inside temperature of about 22-23 degrees C. English people are usually too hot in Russian houses (see my blog on cultural differences!). The suburbs are not heated as well, and a couple of my friends who live in small towns there have cold flats.
Now for the figures:
Figure 1: the price of food shopping.
In the last half a year food prices rose by 30-40%, and people are of course concerned about it, just like in the UK!
Here are the prices of some basic foods, given in roubles and in pounds, roughly based on the current exchange rate of 1 pound to 48 roubles:
•a loaf of white bread: 15-20 roubles (35p)
•1 litre of milk: 37-45 roubles (85p)
•meat – 200-300 roubles (£4) per kilo, depending on the kind
•1 whole chicken: 150-160 roubles (£3.50)
•sausage (German style, much loved by Russians): 310 roubles (£6) per kilo
•cold cooked ham (“buzhenina”): 400-600 roubles (£8-12) per kilo
•fish (sea fish is sold frozen, as Russia is an inland country): 100-150 roubles (£2-3)
•25 teabags of decent tea – 40-50 roubles (£1)
•vodka: 100-300 roubles per half a litre bottle, depending on the kind (£2-6)
•vines from Spain, Portugal, Chili: 200-400 roubles (£4-8)
There are different classes of supermarkets and shops, so the price of food may vary quite a lot. The cheapest food is sold in rough food markets in residential areas, away from the centre.
Figure 2: the price of transport
•Tube card for 1 journey, regardless of distance – 19 roubles (40p)
•Bus, trolleybus, tram – 17 roubles for 1 journey (35p)
•Taxi: for an official taxi that you book on the phone – 450 roubles (£9.50) per 30 min. For cars you hail in the street – 100-150 roubles (£2-3) for about 10-15 min journey, 200 roubles (£4) for 20-30 min and so on. Bargaining is common and you agree the price before getting in the car.
•Suburban trains: 200 roubles (£4) for a return ticket to a suburban town 40 min away from the city centre (sort of London –Woking). Can one travel from London to Woking for £2? Shall I remind you of the London train prices or is it too painful to think about? For the money I pay to get to work from Surrey to central London every day I could travel to work in Moscow from the outskirts to the centre for a month!
Figure 3: tariffs for telephone
•Line rental – 125 roubles (£2.50) per month
•Unlimited talk on landlines – 350 roubles (£7) per month
•If you choose to pay by the minute – 25 kopecks (0.005p) per min
•Calls from landlines to mobiles – 1.50 roubles (0.03p) per min
Figure 4: (and the most interesting one) tariffs for communal services.
Every time I pay London bills I become enormously homesick! And here is why:
•Average flat insurance, provided by the city council: 30-40 roubles (80p) per month. It means that if your pipe leaks because it’s too old, you won’t have to pay the neighbour for repairing the leak damage. Or if the flat burns out, you won’t be paid any damages but the city is supposed to find you another accommodation to live in (whether it will is another question!)
•Gas, fixed price per person: 20 roubles (40p) per month.
•Water: 60 roubles (£1.20) per 1 cubic metre of hot water and 15 roubles (30p) per 1 cubic metre of cold water if you have it metered, if not, the price is fixed per person – 330 roubles (£7)per month.
•Electricity: 2 roubles (4p) per kilowatt, an average household bill per person per month is about 500 roubles (£10).
•Entry phone system: 45 roubles (£1) per month
•Central heating: 12 roubles (25p) per sq metre of living space per month – regardless of the time of the year. So if you have a 50 sq metre flat, the cost of heating per month will be 600 roubles (£12).
•Maintenance of building and council tax – 200 roubles (£4) per month
One unpleasant thing about the communal maintenance is that hot water is switched off for 3 weeks for maintenance every summer, so in that time it’s impossible to take showers and most people heat water in big pots to have a wash!
So, if you live on your own in a small flat with a kitchen and a bathroom, your total average household bill per month will be about 1500 roubles (£30). No comment…
Figure 5: And last, but not least! The rate for Russian lessons – 1000–1500 roubles per hour (£20-30), also cheaper than in London!
Figure 6: the minimum income
Bread line income: 8000 roubles (£160) per month, impossible to live on and much criticised, but people do live in Moscow with this level of income.
Average state pension: 5000-7000 roubles (£100-150) per month. You are allowed to work and get the full pension at the same time, and even live abroad and have a second citizenship and receive the state pension if you worked in Russia all your life. Most pensioners either work or are supported by their children.
All this said, it’s true that there are a lot of very expensive places and very rich people in Moscow. The capital city collects and attracts all the rich and the super-rich from the whole of Russia and the ex-Soviet states, and if you stay in hotels, rent big flats and eat in top-class restaurants, it is incredibly expensive! An average Muscovite though, even a middle-class one, can eat out in Pushkin Café about twice a year and go to more modest restaurants on other occasions. But most people prefer to cook and eat at home, entertain friends and go on social visits that don’t cost much.
It’s true that if you are foreign and don’t speak Russian (learning Russian helps a bit!), you can, and probably will, be taken advantage of, and may leave Moscow thinking that it’s the most expensive city in the world. But I personally have just thought that of Florence, having recently been on holiday there. I can guarantee that it was a LOT more expensive than Moscow. So take reports about Moscow costs with a pinch of salt.