Just so everyone doesn’t think that Moscow is the Promised land from my “sweetness and light” posts, I thought that I’d show you Moscow
from the average eye instead of a tourist’s eye or via the eye of a privileged expat.
Average Housing
Average Housing

One of the things that really hit me when I made my first trip to Moscow was the really ugly apartment buildings I saw from the taxi on our way from the airport.   I knew that we weren’t going through the slums because there were normal people walking around the streets as well as the area was as clean and well kept-up as possible.   I made it my mission to find out as much as I could about how the average Russian person lives and I think I can talk about it with a reasonable amount of factual information now.

There are several different styles of architecture around here, depending on the government leadership at the time.  Stalin was known to build some very nice buildings with impressive architecture.  Of course, many people died under the slavery of Stalin so that beauty is tainted.   Krushchev era buildings were mostly giant pre-fab buildings made with cheap concrete and not very large or nice inside.  
Most average Russians live outside the center of the city where there are thousands of large pre-fab concrete apartment buildings, all bunched together in massive complexes.  It’s more expensive to live inside the center of the city (within the ring that encloses the Kremlin) and many people who have real estate there rent it out to companies who obtain them for their expat employees.   New architecture is also extremely expensive and our rent is over $10,000 American dollars a month because we are in a new apartment building. 
Unfortunately because of the financial crisis, which Russia hasn’t escaped, many companies are pulling out and the expats are going with them.  This leaves people with empty apartments and nobody to rent to.  I’m really not too worried about Russians because it seems to me that since most don’t pay rent (the housing was government housing “given” to citizens who pass the apartment on to their children) and since few stores accept credit cards and many Russians just pay cash for anything they buy, not to mention very few people own cars, they’re not as deeply in debt as most of us are in the U.S.   Of course, their ruble is worth less than an American dollar so they can’t buy as much and their pay is lower than the average American in a comparable position, but all in all, I’m under the impression that Russians are pretty thrifty and absolutely save for that rainy day.
 
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