TATY - about the *scandalous pricing system*.... (yes, I know you were halfway joking - but even so, there's something going on there that can be extremely frustrating for us poor foreigners...
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)
I've noticed the same thing every so often, both
in Russia (hotel prices!!!
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), and with Russian sellers outside Russia (f.ex. on eBay - yes, yes, I'm an addict, I confess...)
I can somehow understand their point of view: their average income is lower than ours, and they try to earn a bit more off people who have more. And fair enough - frustrating of course
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, but fair enough, if you think about it.
Where it goes wrong, is may Russians' perception of
how rich we are (and maybe that's a leftover from their recent history? Propaganda - counterpropaganda - wild stories going around about 'the Rich West'? I remember a friend from Leningrad, 20 years ago - who was convinced that ALL Americans were rich, drove small sportscars (????!!!!
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), and smoked cigars (???!!!). We couldn't convince him otherwise, for - as he said - he had seen proof of all that in (slightly illegal
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) American glossy magazines like Vogue(!) and such (which his mum loved). I happened to have an arty-farty photobook about the Bronx, and when we showed him, he was so shocked that he didn't speak for hours. Which was a biiiiiiiig deal for him.
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He now lives and works in Paris and Brussels, BTW, and his perspectives are normal now....
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Let's, f.ex., say I earn twice what a Russian doing my job does (that should be about right, maybe a bit more, but not triple). But as their perception is, that all Westeners are dripping with money (after all, they see a lot of Western бизнесмеи and racketeers, you can't even blame them
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), they don't double their prices for foreigners, but triple them - or multiply by four or five.....
Which makes me, a "rich westerner", a normal person where I live, but somewhat of a pauper when in Russia! Because I'm not so rich as the rich westerner they expect me to be.....
But all that is just MHO
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..... any other thoughts are welcome
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(interesting subject, TATY, tx for bringing it up!)