[Akula]

(12-16-2013 04:57 PM)arnoux Wrote:  

Average salary is around 35k but russian people usually dont rent apartment, a lot of them own apartments (given by communist gvt in old time). so the 35k is for cars food and leisure. They dont save money at all.
With 80k you will make 5k after tax, so at least take 2k for your rent if you want to be in center (and this is not going to be a fancy place at this price) . Then 3k for the rest so this is going to be OK but not the big life at this price. Invite a girl in a decent place for a dinner will cost you in general 300 usd with wine.

I dont know how many oligarchs are there but in fancy places the numbers of ferrari / roll royce etc parked is just amazing.

As you say its hard to believe but the situation in moscow is just crazy, there are a big numbers of guys making real crazy money and this make the competition (for the top quality girls i repeat) very hard.

+1000

It may be hard to believe but yes there are thousands of rich guys here and they throw money around left right and center. And they are not just dating one or two girls but many so all these women get used to big expensive dinners, fancy cars, trips abroad, etc. And remember, most of the married guys here cheat, so they have 1 or 2 mistresses as well who are also benefitting from their largesse. That is not an insignificant amount of men or money being thrown around. Expectations have risen accordingly.

Russians don't save either, so it all goes to 'the good life' and, inevitably, the women. Plus, it's not just about the money, but also what you can provide a girl here in terms of a comfortable life, protection, a nice apartment (which many guys just inherit from granny, for $0, etc). Thus, even if a guy is only making as much as or less than a foreigner, he 'shines' more bc he's connected, or has some kind of guaranteed income from a government job, or knows how to skim a little off the top here and there until eternity, or is well connected and gets lots of perks and/or has a great apartment he inherited from his family. That's always going to be worth more to a woman than some unknown expat with no connections, no home and little understanding of Russia.

But Moscow is still awesome for women, not saying it isn't, it's just that somewhere in the past 5 years expectations have gone through the roof and a lot of these girls now expect you to provide them with all the stuff the rich guys do and spend all your money on them! So I've been using 'min-relationship' game when I start out small and buy then a few small things after a few months but if they go into full 'gold digger' mode then I just drop them - not worth it.