Thread: Travel Blog; CIS/ex-USSR countries (i.e. Russian speaking)

Gosh Eric, he's telling you what his friends are earning in his own country, and you, on the other side of the earth think you know better! Give me a break!

From what I am seeing in Minsk, I think the salaries here are higher than that.
I am seeing plenty of good quality German cars, four wheel drives etc.
Note: Me, the "decadent visiting Western tourist" haven't got a car, or even a driving licence....
But I'd say the average salary in Minsk has to be over 1500.

And there is more to life than income - here, you have a very nice day out for almost nothing.

The reason for the crisis now, seems to be that Lukashenko's government wanted to give everyone "good" salalaries and guarantee jobs for all.

And on the issue of who can afford to travel where.. I am actually a manager in IT and I deliberately worked in a lucrative industry. My salary in the UK was definitely not average, so it's not possible to compare my situation with an average person in the UK or Sweden. They would not be able to afford to take a break like this, or travel outside of the charter destinations.

How much does it minimally cost to fly to Minsk, to rent a small flat and take a Russian course (2, 3 weeks or a month). Something like 1500 euros or even less. Many people in Western Europe can afford it. And how much does it cost to do the same thing in London? Much more. And Belorussian salaries are certainly smaller than English.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Even good Moscow salary (1500 euros) is not enough.

1500 Euro (60k Russian Roubles) is definitely NOT a good Moscow salary. (This can be considered as a rather good salary in my town though, wich is located only 40 km away from Moscow, that's why I spend about 6 hours every working day in traffic jams on my way to Moscow and back, I hate that fukkin city). For example I pay 50k monthly for a flat loan only. Having a wife who is not working for now and two little kids I would went a full bankrupt with such a "good" salary in no time. I assume it's some kind of "official" number though. The most part of salary people get here "under the table" because the official income tax of 13% is a hipocritical cheat. Before you'll get taxed this 13% your employer have to pay 37% "social tax" from your salary. For example, if your employer wants to spend 100k Roubles on your salary, he have to pay 37k social tax fist from this amount and only then he charges the rest 63k as your salaly. Then you have to pay 13% income tax from this amount and after that you would get only 54,8k. These taxes are higher than in Germany AFAIK, for example, there social care from the goverment is much more advanced and the amount of this tax money stolen by corrupt officials is insignificant, unlike how it happens in Russia, there most of this taxes will be stolen anyway. That's why the majority of employers here prefer to pay a big part of salary "under the table". I wouldn't mind to pay even these rather high taxes if I would be certain that they are spent on old people's pensions, education of children, health care, etc. But I hate when I hear that some corrupt official buys a brand new Porche or builds a new luxurious house for the money stolen from taxpayers.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I actually want to visit places in Siberia...!

!! Welcome !!

Кем вы работаете, Basil? Синие воротнички, большинство бюджетных работников получает (существенно) меньше. Я не уверен, что столько получает молодой специалист в частной компании.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Кем вы работаете, Basil?

В данный момент в сфере строительства, ремонта и эксплуатации помещений, скажем так.

Синие воротнички, большинство бюджетных работников получает (существенно) меньше.

Большинство синих воротничков в Москве из средней азии, они живут по 20 человек в съёмной однушке и моются раз в месяц, если вообще моются. Я бы не стал брать их за эталон. Бюджетники же слишком широкое понятие. У меня знакомый работает мелким клерком в московской мэрии, к примеру (тоже типа бюджетник), так я, по сравнению с ним, полный нищеброд и голодранец.

Я не уверен, что столько получает молодой специалист в частной компании.

Большинство так называемых "молодых специалистов", закончивших современные российские ВУЗы - это полные пустышки. 99 процентов знаний и умений практически в любой сфере в настоящее время специалист получает в процессе работы. Поэтому я не вижу смысла платить человеку серьёзные деньги только потому, что у него есть диплом. Пусть сначала действительно станет профессионалом, тогда уже и начнёт зарабатывать по-настоящему.

Marcus might be talking from a perspective of a newly examined person in their early 20s.
Basil77 and I are talking from the perspective of someone much older and more experienced.

When I read the Swedish Study Russian forum, there are tons of people who complain that they can't afford to go to Moscow, to study there etc.
But I am thinking, Russia is big... there are other places to go to, train tickets and coach tickets in Russia are not THAT expensive, and they would perhaps have to accept a flat which is less modern, shared with some others etc.
Pretty much same as if they want to go to England, to be honest. If a Russian person wanted to study English, they should go to a smaller town, and they'd find they could afford it and learn just as fast. Europe has slightly higher salaries, but also higher prices!
I was young and very poor once, and I am past that point in my life, thank God!

And also, I can tell you that there are a lot of rich Russians around in the capitals of Europe. They are the dream customers of Steinmann's department store in Helsinki, and shop in the best places in London. I see them a lot, eating at restaurants I can't afford, and dressing like fashion queens.
Russia is such a rich country if everything was just more fairly distributed!

It's not my fault that the USSR didn't manage to build communism for real (I wish they had!), or that things went crazy in the 90s. I looked UP to Russia while I grew up, not for the material standard of living, maybe, but for other things. I refuse to look down on it now. I am sorry about the suffering of people in the 90s though. But in regards to Russia, I do not feel any "rich country guilt" like I would towards a country in Africa or something. If people in Russia stopped putting up with corruption and other BS from their government, things would improve a lot, I think.

In Belarus, and Ukraine -- I do/did feel a little bit like that, because they are smaller countries, and both have not been treated right by EU and their fate has not been in their own hands in the same way. They do not have the same resources as Russia.

Originally Posted by Hanna

It's not my fault that the USSR didn't manage to build communism for real (I wish they had!).

Unfortunately it was impossible from the very beggining. Communism is an utopy, you must have "ideal humans" to build it. (But I like the utopy where every person get at least three slaves more, at least it's much more fun and I could demand my personal 3 slaves from the goverment). Communism and human nature don't coexist together, it's as obvious as 2x2=4, I don't understand how it was possible to feed people in USSR with such a stupid tales for so long.

It's not my fault that the USSR didn't manage to build communism for real (I wish they had!)

I did not blame you for anything, you've misunderstood me. Sorry, if I offended you somehow. Communism is hell, and I'm glad it hasn't been built. I hope it won't.

Большинство так называемых "молодых специалистов", закончивших современные российские ВУЗы - это полные пустышки.

Не уверен. Многие из них потом по всему миру работают.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Не уверен. Многие из них потом по всему миру работают.

Я говорю "большинство", не все конечно. Те, которые работают по всему миру, это, как говорится, "штучный товар", они в масштабе страны наперечёт. Большинство же новоиспечённых счастливых обладателей дипломов экономистов и юристов просидели 5 лет у мамы с папой на шее, играя в MMORPG, дуя пиво и покупая зачёты за взятки. Их приходится всему учить с нуля.

Originally Posted by Basil77

Unfortunately it was impossible from the very beggining. Communism is an utopy, you must have "ideal humans" to build it. (But I like the utopy where every person get at least three slaves more, at least it's much more fun and I could demand my personal 3 slaves from the goverment). Communism and human nature don't coexist together, it's as obvious as 2x2=4, I don't understand how it was possible to feed people in USSR with such a stupid tales for so long.

Nor do I. But I generally like your point, that's what I think of that too. It'd been obvious from the very beginning they fed that bullcr*p to the people just to hold the power.

But I think anyone who knew the difference would prefer to live in the ideal communist society, rather than the ideal capitalist society (whatever that is.. the USA, or?) The USSR was really far from any communist ideals, but I think there were some good points to it. It was a real shame for Russians and others to lose the good things along with the bad. I am sure most people in Russia would like to "re-do" the perestroika years, and do things differently, if they could. Some of those good ideals have also been achieved in other European countries, for example Scandinavia. I am talking about a society where people can feel safe about their job and salary and where they do not have to pay for basic essential services like healthcare and education. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. etc

Maybe at some point in the future, people will be more evolved and ready to try something like communism for real.

And it's obvious that one of the reasons that communism did not have much of a chance so far, is that it's constantly forced to defend itself against capitalist countries. I am not sure how much the USSR spent on defense and generally just protecting its interests, but probably much more than it should have.

I am not a communist who dreams about world revolution, but at the same time, I am disgusted by capitalism in it's current form. It seems to get increasingly aggressive and greedy for every year that passes.

Please can someone invent an "-ism" that is nice, easy to implement and works!!!

Ideal communism is a nightmare. I advice you to read "Socialism as a phenomenon of the world history" by I. R. Shafarevich. I'm not sure about the English title. In Russian it is called "Социализм как явление мировой истории" автор - Игорь Ростиславович Шафаревич.

How can anyone know that it's a nightmare when it's never actually existed? From what I can recall, I think it sounds pretty nice. It's a utopia, we don't know what it would be like yet, because nobody ever got to that state.

Anyway, this travel blog is about the PRESENT state of things in these countries. The past, and the Soviet era years are only relevant in the way that they affect the present.
Here in Belarus there are quite a lot of Soviet memorials and so on still around, so it's easy to get reminded of it though.

How can anyone know that it's a nightmare when it's never actually existed?

The description is enough to understand what it is. No families, no faith, everything is distributed by the authorities. All these utopias were described in the book I mentioned.

Originally Posted by Hanna

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. etc

Here lies all its utopianism. Who's to determine everyone's abilities and needs? If it's some "chosen ones", then it'll be the harshest dictatorship ever occured, they're never gonna determine that fairly and properly. If it's the people themselves, everyone will stop working and will be relying on unlimited benefits, and that will lead the economy to crash. Generally speaking, that's impossible due to the human nature as Basil said (I totally agree with him on that). Basically, it's a utopia as long as the humankind exists.

Who's to determine everyone's abilities and needs? If it's some "chosen ones", then it'll be the harshest dictatorship ever occured

+100
Первый раз с вами согласен.

Originally Posted by Marcus

No families, no faith, everything is distributed by the authorities.

Офигеть, я думал эти поповские бредни остались в 20-х.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

Who's to determine everyone's abilities and needs?

From this question it is clear that you don't understand main idea of communism. And Soviet Union never said that it had communism, they wanted to construct it. But after fail of German Revolution it became clear that World Revolution will not become, so the idea of World Wide society without states, governments and "chosen ones" was discarded.

Decision of building new society in the single state (note: state, communism declines states) was kept. The idea was to build socialistic society that in future will spread all over the world and make coming of communism easy. Government doctrine was never called communism. Marksism, Marksism-Lenininsm, Socialism. Bad translation and black propaganda.

It the same with western models here, few amount of people know the difference between Republic and Democracy, for main part of people it is the same, and has small relation to its original meaning.