Russian Economy General News: #12

The critical thing for Russia is to maintain its population without dilution through mass migration. Growing it to 400 million is not
necessary. Power does not scale linearly with the population. By the same measure, the scaling of the GDP with population is
fluff as well. Funny how the Leninist slogan that "quantity has a quality all of its own" is repeated in various contexts without
any awareness of it.

More brains is not enough. Having the right environment for those brains to develop and have the opportunities to contribute
is the real issue. The US has more warm bodies than Russia, but it is clearly degenerating in terms of education and indigenous
brain development. MIT shows this, it floats on attraction of brains from around the world. If the population of the USA was
enough, it would not need to import those brains.

Since 2000 Russia has experienced the best period in its history. You can tell this by the quality (not just quantity) of military tech
that has been produced and is being deployed. People who say that Russia is just riding on the decaying Soviet legacy are
simply morons. They should not be opening their traps to show their idiocy. Russia today puts the USSR to shame. The
USSR had so many resources and the supposedly superior command economy to do almost anything. Look at the diversity
of the Soviet vehicle pool in 1989 and the state of this pool in Russia today. It is simply night and day.

The adaptability of the Russian economy is not being appreciated at all. Maybe Obummer and his "Russia does not make anything"
drivel is laughable, but it is not just based on lack of brain power. The expectation that sanctions would bring Russia to its knees
was based on actual characteristics of most of the world economies. Being able to import substitute not just products but capital
over short periods of time is simply shocking. Recall that 2014 is long after 1990 and all those Soviet trained brains either left
for abroad, retired or died. Yet Russia has managed to train enough specialists and maintain its intellectual capital in the face
of the greatest depression in modern history during the 1990s. I will keep harping on this point without end. It is an epic achievement
of Biblical proportions.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:if this is only abut welfare then why Israel has like ~2,5 fertility rates? Israel is not religious state yet ahs better fertility then Islamic republic of Iran or KSA.  Even if Russian fertility rate will grot will 2.2 you still need more people to make country and economy stronger.   On Russian territory easily would "sank"  extra 500mln people.

The hell?

why Israel has like ~2,5: Because their is a significant percentage of Israelis who are Orthodox jew. And the Jewish courts that govern marriages and divorce, is a religious court, implementing thing in a more patriarchal manner, that isn't one sided in the women's favor all the time.
In short, its the Patriarchal orthodox that are keeping the Jewish population strong.

Islamic republic of Iran or KSA: The Iranians gave their women voting rights and education, this has directly led to their fertility decline.
As for the KSA, almost the same story, except it's just education.

"Even if Russian fertility rate will grot will 2.2 you still need more people to make country and economy stronger.": ....???.....is this what they call an oxymoron?

"An oxymoron is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction." : ...Yes.

Russia wants or not must prepare to import human capital. The question is not if but how to ensure newcomers want to contribute, assimilate to feel Russians?

Honestly i would agree, although for different reasons, i have come to the conclusion that Democracies will eventually lead to socialism, once politicians figure out that they can win votes with welfare, the welfare spiral will consume the country, causing people to become more and more dependent on the government, taxing business to hell, eventually leading to the need for the government to "seize the means of production" in order to keep the economy from completely imploding.

Problem is, the increased dependence on government's welfare will lead to a fertility decline, leading to the need of mass-immigrantion in order to keep the welfare state from collapsing first.
This immigration in turn simply destabilizes the country one way or another.
I also don't believe much in "Assimilation", the outsider is almost always the outsider, take the American Black community, how's their assimilation doing?  

AlfaT8 wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:if this is only abut welfare then why Israel has like ~2,5 fertility rates? Israel is not religious state yet ahs better fertility then Islamic republic of Iran or KSA.  Even if Russian fertility rate will grot will 2.2 you still need more people to make country and economy stronger.   On Russian territory easily would "sank"  extra 500mln people.

The hell?

why Israel has like ~2,5: Because their is a significant percentage of Israelis who are Orthodox jew. And the Jewish courts that govern marriages and divorce, is a religious court, implementing thing in a more patriarchal manner, that isn't one sided in the women's favor all the time.
In short, its the Patriarchal orthodox that are keeping the Jewish population strong.

nope it is ~3 . Well all Israelis I know are irl are not rally religious, surely NOT orthodox. Yet 3 kids im minimum among them, So probably. whqts more women work full time jobs.
Same as was in Europe or USA 60-80s.

AlfaT8 wrote:
"Even if Russian fertility rate will grow till 2.2 you still need more people to make country and economy stronger.": ....???.....is this what they call an oxymoron?

2,2 is reproduction rate. So how you can see an oxymoron here?

Russia wants or not must prepare to import human capital. The question is not if but how to ensure newcomers want to contribute, assimilate to feel Russians?

Honestly i would agree, although for different reasons, i have come to the conclusion that Democracies will eventually lead to socialism, once politicians figure out that they can win votes with welfare, the welfare spiral will consume the country, causing people to become more and more dependent on the government, taxing business to hell, eventually leading to the need for the government to "seize the means of production" in order to keep the economy from completely imploding.

Problem is, the increased dependence on government's welfare will lead to a fertility decline, leading to the need of mass-immigrants in order to keep the welfare state from collapsing first.
This immigration in turn simply destabilizes the country one way or another.
I also don't believe much in "Assimilation", the outsider is almost always the outsider, take the American Black community, how's their assimilation doing?  [/quote]


Black population was "imported" as slaves mainly they got some reasons , of course heated up by ruling class.

Here we cannot agree on lack of assimilation. USA population is actually based mostly on imported people. Same as Australian, Argentinian or NZ does. So nobody feels Australian or Argentinian? Garry B is here exception he is the Kiwi


The question here to me, are assimilation rules to be followed. And inflow of immigration over time.

kvs wrote:The critical thing for Russia is to maintain its population without dilution through mass migration.   Growing it to 400 million is not
necessary.   Power does not scale linearly with the population.   By the same measure, the scaling of the GDP with population is
fluff as well.   Funny how the Leninist slogan that "quantity has a quality all of its own" is repeated in various contexts without
any awareness of it.  

Uncontrolled influx of people has never been advantageous for any country. That was called subjugation. That's why immigration flow with assimilation shall be a process tightly controlled. BTW Isn't it what Putin has now on his agenda?

Does Russian need immigrants? if not, then why still there are s around 10 millions illegals working in Russia? Why Putin wants to ease immigration rules?

kvs wrote:
More brains is not enough.    

Putin says exactly that about specialists in high tech too. He says Russian needs more skilled workers... :-) In order economy to grow faster you need more and more people with skills. As for Russia after 2014, I agree that this was epic victory for Russia and Bardak's statement was kinda funny


IMHO there is never too many brains and skilled people. Yet another resource you need to cultivate.

Importing brains is a challenge. In Canada I see zero evidence of much brain power being brought in. This is reflected in the specialists
from abroad having their certifications ignored and them having to drive taxis. Yet I hear endlessly about some gap in the number of
specialists available to fill vacant jobs spots. It is all inane propaganda.

What Putin says is consistent with my post. Russia needs to provide conditions for its own brains to get the skills to contribute
to the economy. And those supposed unfilled job spots must be real and not just lip service fiction like in Canada. I do not see
Russia slipping in this regard. It has succeeded in training a new generation of specialists in the whole spectrum economic skill
sets and this is not going to all of the sudden fail.

The imported western academic fashions are getting push back as well. So Russia lacks the dumb down agenda evident in Canada
and the USA.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

Putin says exactly that about specialists in high tech too. He says Russian needs more skilled workers...  :-) In order economy to grow faster you need more and more people with skills. As for Russia after 2014, I agree that this was epic victory for Russia  and Bardak's statement was kinda funny

IMHO there is never too many brains and skilled people. Yet another resource you need to cultivate.

True. Immigration is a problem in the West because they practice immigration for the sake of immigration. If you only do it to undertake a useful purpose then it lets you do things that otherwise you would have to postpone or forfeit for lack of resources. It's a lot like borrowing from abroad.

kvs wrote:The expectation that sanctions would bring Russia to its knees
was based on actual characteristics of most of the world economies.   Being able to import substitute not just products but capital
over short periods of time is simply shocking.   Recall that 2014 is long after 1990 and all those Soviet trained brains either left
for abroad, retired or died.   Yet Russia has managed to train enough specialists and maintain its intellectual capital in the face
of the greatest depression in modern history during the 1990s.   I will keep harping on this point without end.   It is an epic achievement
of Biblical proportions.  

There was never any such expectation. Sanctions were used because Washington can't exactly start a shooting war with Russia, and they are afraid of inaction. The beltway crowd will embrace any action - no matter how stupid, useless, or costly - over inaction. They are afraid the world will discover that the global cop ain't all powerful. So they instituted sanctions - and then talked them up.

KAZ Minerals will develop large copper mines in the far, far east in the late 2020s. Power will be provided by more of those Rosatom nuclear barges.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/arctic-mining/2021/12/kazakh-mining-chief-tells-putin-about-his-huge-nuclear-powered-copper-project

45 billion rubles will be spent to develop coal reserves on the Taimyr peninsula. The output is expected to eventually rise to 20 million tons per year.

https://tass.com/economy/1369991

In related news, Greta Thurnberg had a stroke...

Autodestruct wrote:

kvs wrote:The expectation that sanctions would bring Russia to its knees
was based on actual characteristics of most of the world economies.   Being able to import substitute not just products but capital
over short periods of time is simply shocking.   Recall that 2014 is long after 1990 and all those Soviet trained brains either left
for abroad, retired or died.   Yet Russia has managed to train enough specialists and maintain its intellectual capital in the face
of the greatest depression in modern history during the 1990s.   I will keep harping on this point without end.   It is an epic achievement
of Biblical proportions.  

There was never any such expectation.  Sanctions were used because Washington can't exactly start a shooting war with Russia, and they are afraid of inaction.  The beltway crowd will embrace any action - no matter how stupid, useless, or costly - over inaction.  They are afraid the world will discover that the global cop ain't all powerful.  So they instituted sanctions - and then talked them up.

I clearly recall them talking as if the sanctions would bring Russia to its knees. That this expectation failed is not something to be fobbed
off as merely hype on the part of the western politicians. Russian companies unloaded 240 billion dollars in debt over a couple of years.
There were no mass of companies going under. This amount may seem small by US standards, but this money is multiplied by a factor
of 70 (after 2014) inside Russia to get rubles. Russian prices are not the same in dollars after conversion to US currency, they are much lower.
Assuming a simple 2.5 PPP scaling then the amount repaid is effectively 600 billion US. But the 2.5 PPP factor is mostly for consumer
goods and not corporate transaction prices and much of the Russian production sector where it is closer to 5. So Russia unloaded
closer to an effective 1.2 trillion US of debt.

1) The anemic, underdeveloped Russian banking sector grew to fill the foreign loan gap to a sufficient degree. This is not
some snap of the fingers activity.

2) The economic damage from sanctions on tech imports has been nothing but a flop. I recall big talk about the Russian oil
and gas sector struggling after sanctions. Nothing of the sort happened. Even Ukraine, which was much more important as
a supplier of key products such as marine turbines has been totally replaced by internal Russian production. People have no
clue how much of a challenge this is. It is not some download of an exe file and execution under windows. Even if you have
the blueprints or samples of the product, getting a replacement is not easy. Ask China about their jet engine efforts.

3) Import substitution in Russia is epic in scope. It cuts across all sorts of tech production. If this was so easy, then every
developing country would have reached developed stage decades ago. I do not see Canada being able to achieve anything
like this. It just does not have the intellectual capital to do it. It can do some things but it lacks the depth. Russia was
set to lose its intellectual capital in the wake of the 1990s. Not being paid for years sort of gets people to find other jobs
or leave the country. People were not paid even if they worked for universities and institutes. This is why you had so
many specialists moving to the west. Take a look at the names of professors in US and Canadian universities. They are
not all form China.

You are assuming that what they and their talking heads say reflect what they believe. Most in government are perennial liars. 50 years of sanctions on Cuba didn't bring them to their knees. Nobody actually thought the Russians would be brought to theirs. They did it because they didn't want to look weak. The philosophy is any action is better than none.

Population is at the top o the agenda.

The western media(asshole lairs) are spreading this nonsense that the Russian economy is in trouble but it is the exact opposite thing.

The Russian economy is discussed from
16:40-20:20(if you dont want to see the whole program but I highly recommend to see the whole program.)

If a growth bigger this year than economic decline last year, that is a sign of a prospering economy.

The commentary around 50 minutes is significant. The Ukr nazionalists see NATzO as the fourth Reich. They are not real
nationalists anyway as their whole identity is manufactured by western meddling since the 1800s. Before that we had
periods of direct occupation by Poland and Lithuania but the fake national identity was manufactured later. Nationalism
really formed in the 1800s in Europe.

EU-tardia is indeed an anti-Russian project. If Russia was so insignificant as I have been hearing from these clowns over
the last 30 years, then they would not be foaming at the mouth about it. The zero sum thinking of all or nothing western
elites gives them paranoia that Russia wants to take them over, just as they want to take over Russia.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

AlfaT8 wrote:The hell?

why Israel has like ~2,5: Because their is a significant percentage of Israelis who are Orthodox jew. And the Jewish courts that govern marriages and divorce, is a religious court, implementing thing in a more patriarchal manner, that isn't one sided in the women's favor all the time.
In short, its the Patriarchal orthodox that are keeping the Jewish population strong.

nope it is ~3 . Well all Israelis I know are irl are not rally religious, surely NOT orthodox. Yet 3 kids im minimum among them, So probably. whqts more women work full time jobs.
Same as was in Europe or USA  60-80s.

Nope, it's the orthodoxy and religious courts.
Not giving women a golden parachute at every divorce, helps keep the family together.

AlfaT8 wrote:
"Even if Russian fertility rate will grow till 2.2 you still need more people to make country and economy stronger.": ....???.....is this what they call an oxymoron?

2,2 is reproduction rate. So how you can see an oxymoron here?

Look like i misread, i though you wrote that a growing population need a growing population in order to maintai the population growth.
What you really meant was the improvement in the economy with population growth, in that case as someone else mentioned before, economy and population dont scale linearly.

Russia wants or not must prepare to import human capital. The question is not if but how to ensure newcomers want to contribute, assimilate to feel Russians?

Honestly i would agree, although for different reasons, i have come to the conclusion that Democracies will eventually lead to socialism, once politicians figure out that they can win votes with welfare, the welfare spiral will consume the country, causing people to become more and more dependent on the government, taxing business to hell, eventually leading to the need for the government to "seize the means of production" in order to keep the economy from completely imploding.

Problem is, the increased dependence on government's welfare will lead to a fertility decline, leading to the need of mass-immigrants in order to keep the welfare state from collapsing first.
This immigration in turn simply destabilizes the country one way or another.
I also don't believe much in "Assimilation", the outsider is almost always the outsider, take the American Black community, how's their assimilation doing?  

Black population was "imported" as slaves mainly they got some reasons , of course heated up by ruling class.

Here we cannot agree on lack of assimilation.  USA population is actually based mostly on imported people. Same as Australian, Argentinian  or NZ does. So nobody feels Australian or Argentinian? Garry B is here exception he is the Kiwi        


The question here to me, are assimilation rules to be followed. And inflow of immigration over time.

Yes everyone's got reasons, that the point.

I think you are getting assimilation mixed up with colonization, did the Americans assimilate to the local indigenous culture, no.
They came and replaced the local culture, and imported their own, America stands as the very example of the opposite of assimilation.
After enough time they considered themselves neither native nor European, and fought a revolutionary war to further separate themselves.
Similar story for Australia, minus the revolutionary part.

The question for me is, how long will this charade continue until the illusion of assimilation falls apart.
My guess would be once the foreign population reaches a certain point of no return.

miketheterrible wrote:If a growth bigger this year than economic decline last year, that is a sign of a prospering economy.

I really want to know(I would love to know), how life is for ordinary people in Russia compared to Western Europe.

Living in Canada, I can see it has gone downward and the same is true for US. I have relatives that live in the US and they say it has gotten bad.

par far wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:If a growth bigger this year than economic decline last year, that is a sign of a prospering economy.

I really want to know(I would love to know), how life is for ordinary people in Russia compared to Western Europe.

Living in Canada, I can see it has gone downward and the same is true for US. I have relatives that live in the US and they say it has gotten bad.

Speaking about myself: at the moment, me, my mother and my father - each of us has our own apartment. Since 2014, my income in rubles has roughly doubled. We are still struggling with the consequences of the collapse of the USSR and the catastrophe of the nineties, when my family lost all their wealth, and my path is still long, but now at least I have hope for improving my situation. I went through the pandemic crisis, I had to change jobs last fall, I lost a considerable amount of money because of this (about 20% of annual income), but now I have restored the balance, repaid the debt of the previous period, halving my debt burden. So now I only have a mortgage left, which is about 18-20% of my income.
Am I living well? It is unlikely, because I am poorer than most of my entourage, because I had to start from scratch, without any support from my parents, having nothing at the start. And yes, the sanctions definitely didn't help ordinary people in Russia, covid almost became a disaster, but I'm still here, and over the past year my monthly income is about 1.8 thousand dollars after taxes. If we take the standard conversion coefficient for PPP at 2.2, it turns out that I now receive the equivalent of 3.96 thousand dollars on hand monthly. At the moment, I can save about a third of my income after paying all my expenses. So you decide for yourself whether I live well or badly.

Scorpius wrote:

par far wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:If a growth bigger this year than economic decline last year, that is a sign of a prospering economy.

I really want to know(I would love to know), how life is for ordinary people in Russia compared to Western Europe.

Living in Canada, I can see it has gone downward and the same is true for US. I have relatives that live in the US and they say it has gotten bad.

Speaking about myself: at the moment, me, my mother and my father - each of us has our own apartment. Since 2014, my income in rubles has roughly doubled. We are still struggling with the consequences of the collapse of the USSR and the catastrophe of the nineties, when my family lost all their wealth, and my path is still long, but now at least I have hope for improving my situation. I went through the pandemic crisis, I had to change jobs last fall, I lost a considerable amount of money because of this (about 20% of annual income), but now I have restored the balance, repaid the debt of the previous period, halving my debt burden. So now I only have a mortgage left, which is about 18-20% of my income.
Am I living well? It is unlikely, because I am poorer than most of my entourage, because I had to start from scratch, without any support from my parents, having nothing at the start. And yes, the sanctions definitely didn't help ordinary people in Russia, covid almost became a disaster, but I'm still here, and over the past year my monthly income is about 1.8 thousand dollars after taxes. If we take the standard conversion coefficient for PPP at 2.2, it turns out that I now receive the equivalent of 3.96 thousand dollars on hand monthly. At the moment, I can save about a third of my income after paying all my expenses. So you decide for yourself whether I live well or badly.

You are better off than the median Canadian and American. Your savings percentage is very large by North American standards.
The average income is skewed by the rich so the often repeated over 67 thousand US dollars per year income in the America is
misleading. The median US income is 31 thousand dollars and expenses are higher. You also state the amount after taxes,
the reported incomes in the US, etc., are before taxes. Those taxes are substantially higher than 13% if you are making
the median income.

par far wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:If a growth bigger this year than economic decline last year, that is a sign of a prospering economy.

I really want to know(I would love to know), how life is for ordinary people in Russia compared to Western Europe.

Living in Canada, I can see it has gone downward and the same is true for US. I have relatives that live in the US and they say it has gotten bad.

I live in Canada

If Scorpion says he is below the median because of bad conditions that kind of threw him off, then I agree with KVS that he is actually in a far better position than most of us in the west.

On paper, we make great money out here. Issue is, cost of living conditions are very high. My house cost me $350K and so our mortgage is for 25 years. Now, we got our home when things were a bit lower so my home is now worth about $450K. But I gotta still pay of course my mortgage. Cant really sell my home cause every other home is now very expensive. So combine, my wife and I make over $100,000 a year. I would say closer to $120K a year. BUT, mortgage eats up about half of our monthly income each. Mix in with taxes which we pay about 25% in income tax. Then our utilities are expensive. I pay $200 for electricity per month cause of my servers. But, they charge a distribution charge and other hidden fees (corruption as far as I am concerned) that makes my electric bill now double that, so I pay about $430 a month for electricity. So it looks cheap at first ($0.066 per KW/h) but with hidden fees, it may as well be double that.

Then, internet and home phone. For a 500Mb/s, unlimited data internet connection and a home phone to call Canada and US wide unlimited with, 1200 mins international to countries like China, India and Pakistan, it is $100 a month. I know in Russia people paying about $10 or so for better service. My mobile is actually a lot better than most as I am on a business plan and I pay roughly about $40 a month for 12gb of data and unlimited text/call us and canada along with 1000mins of calling international per month. I also got a new(ish) phone out of that too (Samsung Galaxy S20FE). I know people in Russia that pay about $10 a month for same service or better.

Now vehicles. Cars on average are abysmal here in price. Actually, Covid made the second hand market nearly impossible to deal with.

Petrol prices is now at $1.44/L here where I am at. I know its quite lower than most places here in Canada. But its abysmal. Want electric car? AHAHAHAHA. You will get raped by distribution charges, electrical charges and just getting a plug in that wont take 8hrs to charge a vehicle will cost an arm and a leg. Add to that, electric vehicles get half the distance here during winter. Oh boy, just what I need... Add to that, electric cars are fortune themselves.

Food prices. Now this is an elephant in the room no one wants to talk about here in Canada. So our government still touts that inflation is only 2% blah blah blah. But, most of our food that isn't Beef is imported for most part. Iceberg lettus costs over $3 now. It used to be $0.99 for every day thing a few years back. Cucumber? $2 for a single one. Bread? $3 average. 4L 3.25% milk? $5.25. Meats on average jumped by about 20% in costs in last couple years. Cheese is still expensive as ever and Butter, oh wow is Butter expensive. $4.5 average per brick. So you cannot go shopping for groceries without spending about $120 average a Week.

At the end of the month, from just my job and wife collecting from hers, we barely have two pennies to rub together (well, they got rid of pennies now, so I guess Nickels). Thankfully, contrary to what some people here think about cryptocurrency, it is saving my ass. Cryptocurrency mining and what not is giving me enough additional income to help cover all those other costs and allows me to have extra money in my pocket.

If a Russian every bitches to me how bad their system is because their savings are rather low, I will punch them in their fucking face. They should be thankful they can have a savings in the first place. 60% of Canadians dont have one or live paycheck to paycheck. The amount of lying Canadians and Americans do to convince themselves they are better than most of the world financially, are criminals themselves imo.

To paraphrase the haters at the Ottawa Citizen "newspaper", the west is a turd wrapped in a layer of propaganda delusion.   This
is why I keep suggesting to malcontents in Russia to bugger on off to their mythical west.   They were coddled during the Soviet
period, and they are still coddled.   Unrealistic expectations require pain to go away.  

The CPI is a contrived index.   It assigns fixed weights to various expense groups.   For example food price inflation is multiplied by 0.13
to contribute to the CPI "average".   The CPI also hides real estate inflation completely.   It contrives some BS "analogue" based on
rent "equivalents".   In Toronto, a house that sold for under 300,000 around 1988 now sells for 1.6 million Canadian dollars.   There
is no gentrification involved, in fact the neighbourhood quality has decreased since then.   So we are looking at a factor of 5.3 increase
in 33 years.   The touted 2% inflation rate would require around 85 years to achieve the same rise.  

So in everything that counts, food, accommodation, big ticket items, the inflation rate is much higher than the BS political CPI metric.
Even though I do not like Bitcoin since it smells of Dutch tulips, the idea is correct in that money is losing its value very fast.
So there is no point in savings and cash investments like the common ones that have returns under 3%.   The Canadian
regime taxes any interest you make as if inflation was zero percent.   These f*ckers are taxing the money they already
taxed.   Trying to keep afloat as the fiat inflates away is not "revenue".

Also, keep in mind healthcare is free in Russia unlike the USA. As for education, there is no comparable value for high end education. You can earn an advanced degree from a top university as a foreigner for 1/10 the price of the USA. Utilities are subsidized and base food prices are kept low. Outside the major cities like Moscow rents are very cheap. I started with the website mynewlifeinrussia.com with the express purpose of facilitating people who want to move to Russia. I get tons of inquiries about people bitching about their lives but very few have the self-discipline to even start learning Russian. They'd rather watch Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman Christmas specials and bitch about their lives.

calripson wrote:Also, keep in mind healthcare is free in Russia unlike the USA. As for education, there is no comparable value for high end education. You can earn an advanced degree from a top university as a foreigner for 1/10 the price of the USA. Utilities are subsidized and base food prices are kept low. Outside the major cities like Moscow rents are very cheap. I started with the website mynewlifeinrussia.com with the express purpose of facilitating people who want to move to Russia. I get tons of inquiries about people bitching about their lives but very few have the self-discipline to even start learning Russian. They'd rather watch Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman Christmas specials and bitch about their lives.

Who are the ones bitching about their lives to you?  Foreigners outside of Russia?

Keep up the good work on your site.

miketheterrible wrote:

calripson wrote:Also, keep in mind healthcare is free in Russia unlike the USA. As for education, there is no comparable value for high end education. You can earn an advanced degree from a top university as a foreigner for 1/10 the price of the USA. Utilities are subsidized and base food prices are kept low. Outside the major cities like Moscow rents are very cheap. I started with the website mynewlifeinrussia.com with the express purpose of facilitating people who want to move to Russia. I get tons of inquiries about people bitching about their lives but very few have the self-discipline to even start learning Russian. They'd rather watch Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman Christmas specials and bitch about their lives.

Who are the ones bitching about their lives to you?  Foreigners outside of Russia?

Keep up the good work on your site.

Mostly Americans, but also various other nationalities. They act like learning Russian is equivalent to studying physics at MIT. You can learn the Cyrillic alphabet in a week.