Thread: Apartments in St. Petersburg

Ngumi mawaka всем.
As you may or may not know I may or may not go and study in St. Petersburg and may or may not have to find apartments there. So how is this done in St Petersburg? Do you get a room on campus, do you have to share, should you buy or rent a flat, how expensive are they, what, how on earth can I pay that much, what kind of jobs are there for foreigners who can't really speak Russian, how much does that earn?
If someone can answer these questions, I'd be ferrit mouche obligé. Merci.

Om ngumi mawuki всем.
Jasper

If you become a student in a Russian university, normally you receive a room on campus, which is normally shared with two, three or four other students - depending on the University, the location and a few other things. You can buy a flat just like everywhere else but I would not expect a student to have enough money for that Renting a flat is another story, there are crappy studios starting at $80 a month, barely passable quality lies between $100-$200 (that will include one-bedroom flats), and up up up. But! If you're a foreigner, they will ask a lot more. The only solution is to have a local in Peter who will do that for you. Finding can be tricky, too, and is best handled by a local -- or with a local. Oh, and there are rooms at less than $80, but conditions vary drastically.

To work in Russia, you're required to have a work permit -- and to find a company that will sponsor one in advance. Well, students may be authorized to work, though; I do not know.

Since you're a native speaker of English, you might be able to work as a teacher of English.

Xexexe, that'll be the day, me teaching English... For one thing, I'm not half as good as I'll have to be to teach other people English. And I stutter like mad. When you meet a Russian who speaks English with a stutter and a horrid mixture of Westcountry/Upperclass/Dutch accents, you'll know who taught him. But thanks anyway.

*pondering*

Still, it's a cool idea. It'll be fantastic practice for University (in England).

*pondering some more*

And it'll earn more than sitting behind the cashdesk at some awful departmentstore...

Anyhoo, how much would either job earn me? I.e., as a cashier and as a teacher?

Originally Posted by Jasper May

Anyhoo, how much would either job earn me? I.e., as a cashier and as a teacher?

As a cashier in a grocery store or something, you might expect anything between $200 and $400 monthly, depending on the place. I doubt you'll be able to find such a job, though. You might only be able to work at a higher level place where your deficiency in Russian would be compensated by your fluency in other languages. There you might expect a higher salary, but the sector is narrower and the competition is higher. You could try your luck in a hotel or a restaurant, they often seem to lack staff speaking English adequately.

As a teacher, you should reckon $400-$600. Then you might find private jobs in foreign families.

If the average Russian wages are ~50$ a month, 200-600$ isn't too bad, really. And who knows how much Russian I'll learn in the next one and a half years. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

If the average Russian wages are ~50$ a month,

I do not know where you got this ridiculous estimate. In Peter, nobody even considers anything below $200. $300 is probably the low-income sector average. I obviously exclude bums. $50 may be the official "white" income, and "black cash" ("чёрный нал") still reigns supreme as far as I know.

200-600$ isn't too bad, really.

If you have a place to live, yes. Renting a flat may very expensive, if all your income is $300. BTW, there is some forum member who teaches English in Russia, so we might hear what the rates are really like now.

Originally Posted by Jasper May

If the average Russian wages are ~50$ a month, 200-600$ isn't too bad, really.

Living in Siberia and making 600 - 800$ a month I still spend 300 - 400$ for living (only flat rent costs 160$). Having 50$ a month you gonna starve!

I agree with all the details here..
teaching English in St Pete's without a qualification in the field could be difficult; with a qualification, rates start at around $500 + free accommodation / month. But that's more or less full time teaching, usually. These are the low end jobs for inexperienced (but qualified) people like me. Experienced teachers can negotiate higher fees, and there's the whole business of private, by the hour lessons which I don't know about yet (but for sure it pays more if you can get it).
$500 a month means 500R a day (at least it used to..) and that is more than enough to live on if you have no bills to pay. However, you can't save anything significant, of course.

..Just a quick edit because I really wanted to add a few more points. Firstly, I believe it *is* legal to work on a student visa in Russia. I'm not sure why this loophole exists, but apparently it does.
The other thing is that private teaching can apparently be had for up to $20-$30/hr in Moscow and presumably similar figures in St Pete's, apparently - I have this from quite a reliable source. Doubtless you need to be both experienced and have connections to get that kind of work though..
As for getting casual work as a shop assistant, I think that's really a very long shot indeed.
The figures of $50 a month that are sometimes bandied about are indeed fairly meaningless. Of course there are people working almost entirely outside the 'legit' economy .. people in rural areas, pensioners who have virtually nothing .. but none of that has any relevance to an ordinary city dweller, much less to a foreigner.

Originally Posted by waxwing

..Just a quick edit because I really wanted to add a few more points. Firstly, I believe it *is* legal to work on a student visa in Russia. I'm not sure why this loophole exists, but apparently it does.

As far as I can tell, this is so in most other countries. And as it is ever the case with the visa business, it is reciprocal. Which in this particular case is good, unlike all the other cases.

Well, I'm ashamed to admit that I did get that figure after searching for 'salaries Russia' on Google. I only got sources from at least 5 years old, so I should have known.
Thanks for all the information, but I think I'll not be going there for a whole year after all. But I still fully intend to go there for 3 or 4 months, between exams and the first term at Uni, so I'm saving up so that I won't have to work there at all. I've already fallen in love with an apartment (I know, it is a bit premature ), and I've written a letter requesting a quote in Russian. Which is nice.