From Russia with Love | Moscow Prices

From Russia with Love | Moscow Prices

Many of my friends and travel guides had warned me about the stiff prices in Moscow, but somehow I failed to prepare for it because I could not associate any Russian city to the same level of priciness of Scandinavia. Right before my trip to Russia, I spent 3 weeks in the Caucasus Georgia and Armenia where prices were very low. In my budget plan, I put down about 8 euro per day for food in Moscow and less elsewhere. A Russian friend of mine took one look of my budget and dismissed with “What do plan to eat there? Bread?”; I increased my food budget to 10 euro per day and off I flew away..to the most expensive city in Europe.

Moscow isn’t the kind of city which can impresses first-timers with imposing skyscrapers, beautiful facade or sparkling clean streets to convince people of its wealth. It has none of them. Moscow is, to me, just another city in eastern europe. I only realized how expensive the city was when I shopped for vegetable. I bought a medium-sized tomato for 60 ruble ~ 1.5 euro. Another tourist forked out 1400 ruble / 35 euro for a grocery list consisting of just fruits and vegetable. He couldn’t read Russian thus accidentally picked imported stuff.
Sample prices
4 small tomatoes: 240 ruble / 6 euro
a bag of 5 frozen carrots: 700 ruble / 17 euro
1 onion: 84 ruble / 2 euro
1 garlic: 54 ruble / 1-1.5 euro

It was way more expensive to buy grocery and prepare food than to eat out in a cheap restaurant. Recommended by the people from the hostels and the Lonely Planet, I found My-My, a good Russian cafeteria chain selling Russian dishes and sushi. I ended up eating there whenever I was in the city center. You can chose from grilled fish, shrimp, meat, fried rice, potatoes, pancakes, different kinds of salads, soups and sushi.
Unlike Scandinavia and Western Europe where everything cost a lot, not all were expensive in Moscow. A metro ride was only 27 ruble / 0.5 euro. I watched an opera at the historical Bolshoi theater for only 100 ruble / ~ 2 euro. Probably there is a lot more if I lingered in Moscow long enough.
We often associate USA to capitalism having a huge wave gap among the rich and the poor. In reality, the capital of the former communist mecca had surpassed New York to have the world’s highest number of billionaires. The richest woman in Russia is the ex-wife of Moscow’s former mayor Yury Luzhkov. At the same time, Moscow’s minimum wave is about $350 per month.