From Moscow we headed to Ekaterinburg, a large industrial town situated East of the Ural mountains. We shared our four person berth with a Russian engineer in charge of a vodka distillery in Sarapul (who by the way doesn’t drink). He spoke good English considering he learned it 15 years prior and had never spoken to a native English speaker! After lecturing us on the poor food we had brought and making sure we shared his (by the way it is very common and considered good etiquette to accept), we discussed the level of life in Russia vs. the US.
Breaking down the cost of living in Russia and the US was eye opening for both us and Andrey and resulted in the following table:
Keep in mind Russia was only recently removed from the UN list of developing countries.
Median Monthly Income $1,200 $3,500
Rent $100 $1200
Food $500 $600
Water, Gas and Electricity $50 $150
TV $6 $150
Internet and Phone $25 $100
Car $100 $250
Health Care Free $400
End of Month Savings $419 $650
We could tell he was genuinely surprised at the cost of living in the US, especially health care and education. For example, we had talked about the war in Iraq with him and Andrey's opinion (and most Russians') is that the American people supported the war because it would bring money and jobs to the US. We explained that it brought few jobs and actually cost people money, but he was hard pressed to believe it. After seeing the table above, we brought this point up again and he simply nodded his head in agreement. What's really telling is that the cost of college and major health care are not included in this table. On a monthly savings of $650, it's nearly impossible for the average American family to send their children to a major university without aid. Faced with a health care crises, the family would have to choose between educating their children or sending them to college.
After that break-down, the American quality of life seems a bit less rosy when you look at other factors as well. For instance, Andrey enjoys fresh organic produce from his family garden, meat from his local butcher and rich dark bread from his baker. He wouldn't touch our processed and "unnatural" food bought at the Moscow supermarket. Unless you double your food budget in the US, you could expect week-old bell peppers and bread that lacks nutrition and taste. And while Andrey does his own plumbing and electrical work around the house (his wife would not consider him a "man" if he didn't), in the US most people pay a plumber or electrician $100+ an hour (same for an car mechanic). Overall meeting Andrey was great, and it allowed us to have an interesting "deep dive" into the Russian life.
Some people take the Trans Siberian non-stop from Moscow to Beijing, but by doing so you miss out on quirky places like Ekaterinburg (which only opened to tourism in 1991). Home to Russia's heavy and military industry (including biological warfare), it also served as the site of the Romanov murders, birth place of Boris Yeltsen and crash site of the U2 spy plane. It struck us as a modern city (lots of sky scrappers) with a bit of old soviet era buildings scattered throughout. On arrival, we lugged our bags across town to the smallest hostel we've ever been in - a small one bedroom apartment (with living room) with ten beds. Although it was comfy and relatively cozy for the price, cleanliness was not a top priority (you can imagine that Jazz had some issues here). Since it was cold and rainy, we spent one full day with a Chinese girl, Jun, planning our China trip and purchasing train tickets. She even bought the tickets on her account with her own money which our host in Beijing was going to repay her! We then planned to repay our host in Beijing! How crazy and nice was that? Yup we're meeting awesome people along the way :)!
Otherwise, our two days in the city were slower placed. One evening we attended the wonderful Ekaterinburg Ballet performance of Giselle, a tragic love story where the girl liked the handsome prince over the country boy (big surprise there!). It was really quite impressive, we couldn't have picked a better show for our first ballet. We even got to do some fun people watching during the break (think English horse-racing-day dressed folks). We also caught the annual "City Day" festival, one of the strangest public events we've seen yet. It was a cross between a farmers market and wacky small town festival. For instance, there was an exhibit of a several meter long sub-sandwich, middle age women dressed as space queens, teenagers sporting techno-alien costumes dancing to house music, a military band marching around the park and a stage with tween girls performing Brittany Spears. Other places we hit included the Blood Cathedral (constructed to commemorate the Tzar's imprisonment and murder) and a Russian photography exhibit showcasing 360 images of Russian life. Next Up: Towards Siberia and the largest lake on Earth.
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