Moscow's supposed to be about as expensive to live in as the Bay Area or Manhattan from what I've read. Rents here in the Bay area are around $1400 for a 1 bedroom apartment. What are they in Moscow?

I pay around $1300 for a 1 bedroom apartment. This is a bit on the high side, but I like living in the city center, in summer it's almost European.

Salaries for grads outside of Moscow are probably half that - I think PHP coders in Kharkov, Ukraine for example would be pretty happy with 12-15K. QA positions could be as low as 8-10K.

And $1300 for a 1-bedroom in Moscow center...what can I say you got off light. All my friends had to go through realtors for $2K places (2-3 rooms through) near Kitai-Gorod.

How about $5K for 2 years experience PHP developer in Dnepr, Ukraine. I work for this now and my motivation is lost completely. May be I will try to relocate. Now i see even in Dnepropetrovsk salary for html coder for $10K and php dev $14K, but they require strong knowledge of all what can imagine, even speaking english. My bad, need better education.

Sounds to me like prime motivation for a startup. If you're not getting paid much, you have more motivation to try something a little risky to improve your lot in life.

Hey, my lot in life isn't too bad! :-) I launched a non-profit project that's fairly important to me (http://openphotovr.org) this winter. Now thinking about starting something else, for money, not sure what exactly.

The website doesn't work so well for me. It says it requires Flash (even though I have a Flash plugin installed).

Thanks. What browser and Flash version? Does this help: http://openphotovr.org/index.html?detectflash=false ?

What do people in that part of Moscow tend to pay for food, utilities, taxes, transportation...?

$30k + $1300/month rent?? Dang... Are other countries an option for you?

I lack the determination to pack up and move. :-( But I suspect I'll leave eventually. Don't know where.

In San Francisco, 1400 dollars will barely get you a studio (in the interesting parts of the city).

Yeah, sorry, I should have said, "South Bay Area" when I was quoting rent prices. I'm assuming things would be quite a bit more expensive in Palo Alto or San Fran. My quote was also based on a new grad wanting to live in El-Cheapo rent districts. If someone wants to, they can certainly pay $2000 a month for a rather nice one bedroom with a concierge at the desk in the South Bay.

You can get a studio in a nice part of town for a lot less than that.

Two years ago I had a great studio in downtown SF for $650. I can't imagine things have changed that much since then.

You cannot get a studio for $650 in any part of san francisco, much less a nice part. Just go to craig's list and do a search for apartments less than $650. ZERO results show up.

Manhattan ranges - 1br in the West Village goes for $1,950/month.

Good article about the experience of finding apartments:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/garden/24new.html?n=Top/Re...

Manhattan had a very successful policy of encouraging diversity by apartment subsidies (Mitchell-Lama). Otherwise, you restrict the area to only those who can "afford" it. I heard recently about someone who sold their apartment back to their rent-subsidized apartment building. A 3br on the Upper West Side. For $12,000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell-Lama

My guess is that after taxes, but in the US they are usually talking about salary before taxex. So basically your $30K is about $40K here.

Are you saying that $30K is like $40K after taxes? It'd be closer to $55K, I think. Taxes are insane in the US (though nothing like northern Europe).

for a salary of $40K the taxes would be around 20-30% in the US depending on your family situation

Total taxes in the US on a $40K salary for a single person with no other income and no other deductions: about $4,200 (10.5%). The marginal tax rate is higher, of course, and state taxes will add a little, but not too much.

haha I actually make 40K... i think its significantly higher than that. All told I think i'll be paying around 12K. (MI.)

If you only make $40k and are paying 30% in taxes, you're doing something very wrong.

You are right. It was quite an exaggeration on my part. Its more like 21.5%.

I've payed less than that in income tax on income much greater than that. Legally, that is. According to H&R's calculator, you should be paying under $5k, and thats with no dependents or other similar deductions.

Is that before or after taxes?

After.