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Author Topic: $200 a month is the AVERAGE salary in Ukraine. Do you disagree? You are wrong!!!  (Read 39159 times)

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Offline Stirlitz

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I am not sure where to post it… feel free to move it where it belongs. OK. This gentleman approached me a month ago and offered a job as his interpreter in Ukraine. He offered $35 a day. I politely declined and explained that this is as much as I charge for an hour, and pointed out that he was a bit mistaken as he assumed the average salary in Ukraine of $200 and based his offer on that figure… See what followed. I will refrain from comments.

I. Unfortunately, you are deeply mistaken about finances. This is OK; many foreigners make this mistake of hearing $200 a month somewhere and assuming that Ukraine is dirt cheap but this is not the case.

S. Igor, I am well aware the average salary in the ukraine is $200 / 1,600 UAH per month. i respect the fact you disagree with this, however you are wrong ,I am right. I have done extensive research  www.wikipedia.com  and talked to many of the Men who either now live in the ukraine, as well as talk to women who live in the ukraine, as well as men who traveled to the Ukraine and successfully met their Wife there. they know all too well the aeverage salary in the Ukraine is $200/1,600 UAH per month.

I. You are funny. You know more about Ukraine than I do! $200 MIGHT be the average salary for the HAVENOTs. However, we obviously have HAVEs in Ukraine too. Tell me who can afford a car with $200 a month if the car costs $10,000 and gasoline is $4.50 per gallone? This is just one example. When you come to Ukraine you will see lots of cars in the street. If you still think that all the people in the cars make $200 a month on the average, you are being ridiculous. Then, have a look at property prices. A small two-room (one-bedroom) apartment in a not too nice area in Odessa costs $50,000 now. A good apartment in the downtown may be $150,000 easily. Again, do you really think that this is possible with the average salary of $200 a month? If you still do, I am not sure about your math and high school.
By the way, I took my car from the shop a few days ago where the front suspension had been repaired. I paid $250 for the job plus $60 in spares. Then I drove to the Crimea which is 300 miles and burned 50 l of gas worth $60. I am glad that my salary is not your 'average' one because this would be 2 months salary just spent on some repairs and a short ride!

S. I am looking to find the Woman of my dreams in the Ukraine. The Woman I will Marry. The Woman I willspend the rest of my life with. The Woman who will be the Mother of my Children. I am not looking to get into petty arguments with you, Igor. you are very wrong, the average salary in the ukraine s $200 per month. I do not wish to argue this point with you. I am right you are wrong. Best of luck to you Igor.

I. Yes. You are right. And gasoline is $0.01 per gallon in Ukraine too :) You made my day. I have not had this kind of laugh for a long time.

S. If you are so smart, why are you living in a shithole of a country like ukraine?? Why don't you move to a wealthy, wonderful country like the US. let's face it, the Ukraine is the "World's Armpit".

I. Oh my god. Why are you looking for a wife in a shithole then?

S. Oh my God, why are you living in the Ukraine?? $200/month??

I. OK, good luck finding your piece of shit! And thank you for a good idea: if I want something, forget the math and keep saying: you are wrong, I am right. I see it works!


Then I blocked him in Skype.
Igor Kalinin
Russian Translator/Interpreter/Guide/Agent for Odessa, the Crimea and the rest of Ukraine
www.odessaguide.net

Offline Paul

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S. Igor, I am well aware the average salary in the ukraine is $200 / 1,600 UAH per month. i respect the fact you disagree with this, however you are wrong ,I am right. I have done extensive research www.wikipedia.com ... 

  :ROFL:

Offline guide-interpreter

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i agree with Stirlitz. it is impossible to survive in  Ukraine with 200 USD. this country became very expensive and we have European prices but not salaries.  :'(


Offline Eduard

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I hate to say it but there are quite a few WM who act and think this way and who still think that by marrying an FSU woman they will be doing her a huge "favor" by getting her out of the "shithole" and bringing her to his Western paradise where he will probably scold her for needing to buy a pair of new underwear and tampons. In my travels I found that there are smart people and idiots in all countries. I would have told him to look up the word "idiot" on wiki and he'd be likely to find his own photo there.

Igor, what is the average salary in Ukraine now?

Ed from the America

Offline Herrie

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..
Igor, what is the average salary in Ukraine now?
..
I think the difference might be "official" and "not official" salary ;) Official average salary can be USD 200,- but I suspect a large part of people get paid "under the table" partly as well, which of course doesn't get included in the calculation ?

Offline Eduard

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..
Igor, what is the average salary in Ukraine now?
..
I think the difference might be "official" and "not official" salary ;) Official average salary can be USD 200,- but I suspect a large part of people get paid "under the table" partly as well, which of course doesn't get included in the calculation ?
It's the same in Russia, people get paid under the table so that they don't have to pay huge taxes to poor Mr. Putin. I wonder how many billions is Medvedev going to be worth after his presidency?

Offline erudite

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Stirlitz, I hope you will not judge all Americans by this dumbass.  The arrogance, the ignorance, the presumptiveness is embarrassing to me as an American.  I would love to see him given a lesson in manners and an education by some smart lady in Ukraine.  I cannot tolerate people with attitudes like his.  Lots of times they are lawyers or doctors from the US.
"It don't matter who's in Austin, Bob Wills is still the King", Waylon Jennings

Offline cufflinks

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There are some deals vis a vis USD and EU prices to be had in Ukraine but it costs more than $200 a month to live in Haiti the poorest country in our hemisphere if not the world.

Point is now almost all services that used to be quoted on the web are now quoted in Euros instead of Dollars as they were 5 years ago - why - most technology and medical etc  supplies come in from the EU.

1 Euro now costs $1.447 USD so it would even be impossible to live in UA on 200 Euros a month...

For example: These folks do Dental Tourism in Kiev and used to post their prices in Dollars - not any more...
www.stomatformula.com.ua

Their UK travel partners
http://medicaltourabroad.co.uk/dentistry-abroad/dentistry-abroad-general/dental-tourism-hungary-poland-ukraine/
http://medicaltourabroad.co.uk/dentistry-abroad/dental-clinics-abroad/dental-clinic-formula-kiev-ukraine/

They used to post in USD but now prefer Euros and GBP as the dollar has fallen so much.

I need a few procedures I want done (a dental implant here in Metro Boston/SoNH is $3K USD - the savings in Kiev are enough to pay for the trip and a bit of wife Recon as well - well for implants maybe the recon will wait for the 2nd trip - the implants have to allow your jaw bone to grow and bond to the implant so first trip you leave toothless  ;)

Point is in the UA professional services and costs of living are all affected by the Euro.  The Dollar is becoming meaningless.


Offline TomT

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On almost every trip abroad, I've met other FSU wife-hunters in airports. I can't say that I've heard the specific comments mentioned above but, more often than not, I've been exposed to the same mentality. It's probably a good thing, though... it makes the rest of us look great in comparison.

Offline Manny

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You did well to ditch him Igor. My wife had a few guys like that asking why she is charging "such high" rates for translation. As it happens, her rates are about to treble simply to keep away blokes like that.

The "greedy" element (not to mention armchair Wikipedia know-alls) are everywhere. Too many of these guys are underfunded and are howling about a book at $30 and paying proper people European rates to do stuff.

As a difference between the two types, my wife ended up last month exchanging about 20 emails with a guy who had paid some price for a service...... it was under $50 anyway.... he then asked her to call him in the US on our bill and started nickelling and diming her on future stuff. She came off the phone with one of those faces and said to me, "Oh, very greedy. I wont work for him". I refunded the guy. She washed her hands of him and sent him her "You are not for me" email.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a guy recently came along, gave her a huge list of women to verify, a heap of three way calls to set up, and some random phone calls to so on his behalf. She was adding her prices up to do all this, when he said, "I dont like being bugged for small stuff, I know who you guys are, I have read your sites, I am happy enough you are for real and wont see me ripped off. I'll send you a thousand American; is that enough? Just do what I want done and tell me when the money runs out and I'll send you more"

She calls those "proper clients". Not surprisingly, she works hard for those blokes. She is on the phone to everyone from Airlines to angry parents of the woman, smoothing over bosses in Ukraine over because the woman has a "a job" for an English company for two weeks, etc. Money buys service in this business; there is no doubt. Cheap and greedy people get a cheap and greedy service.

Another guy had big plans: He wanted her to get someone through security at KUF airport and breeze him through immigration, he had two girls for translation on call 24/7 (both English teachers from Samara university). He wanted a choice of two cars and drivers to take him anywhere round the clock. Someone to deal with his visa registration - all of it. Oh, also a local cell phone, numbers to call if he had a problem, etc. She arranged all of it but then he said it was a bit expensive and he would wing it with an Ectaco. We never heard what happened to him........

A proper service provider like Igor doesn't want to muck about arguing with greedy types over Wikipedia's out-of date version of "average" salary. He wants a bloke who realises he is hiring a professional. Having realised that, a few dollars less than what his lawyer would charge him to do *anything* is a bargain.

Igor, what is your day rate? (Say, 10-6 - translation and car)
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Offline NS1

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I am curious as well what the average salary is?
I like many read many things and actually never read 200 per month but did read
many make less than 100 per week, even then I thought how the hell would they live.
I have been twice and see it is not true. But from what I see where you live and what you do can make a big
difference as well. i also learned many do work for cash so the avoid the taxes.
What is the tax rates in ukraine?

In Chernivtsi I hire a car for a day 9-6 cost me $80 on same trip hired translater to go with was $50.
I paid for meals as well, I thought I got a bargain.
I still can't get over how little taxis cost there, not sure how they make money????
Mind you half them drive junk. but still cost of fuel alone.

I paid $80 a night apartment in Kiev downtown and was very nice.
I paid $45 a night in Kiev bigger and nice, but Kievs was nicer apartment
I thought both were good deals.

In Kiev I never seen so many mercedes and Bmw's so i am think 200 where the hell did they find that!!!!
There is nothing permanent except change.

Online 2tallbill

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Igor is right but for the wrong reasons.

Igor is worth more because he is worth more, not because he
needs more. How much he needs is irrelevant. How much he is  worth is the only thing that matters.

Example
If it costs $400.00 per month to live in XYZ Ukraine and I need a
translator for a month full time. Do I pay them $400.00 a month
if they don't speak a word of English?

NO, they are worth nothing to me so I would not pay them anything.

Let's say I had an oil / gas exploration business in KZurksasikovsk
and I needed somebody who spoke fluent English and Russian and Ukrainian, plus knew a bunch of highly technical terminology specific to my industry. Knowing all this stuff is what is important.

Lets say it is worth $5,100 per month to me.

If Igor offers to do this for $5,100 per month or less then I am happy. If he wants to do if for $5,101 or more than I am not, because that is what the job is worth. I could care less if Igor needed either $400 per month to live on or $6,000 to live on. What I would care about is how much the job is worth to me and if Igor could do it well.

Igor is explaining his expenses and not his value. He is more valuable than some college girl who studied some English in school.
That is what he should explain. He is more fluent, more experienced, and has special knowledge and experience in the this kind of translations and is simply worth more than some college girl who has no experience and no special knowledge.


Udachi

Bill
FSUW are not for entry level daters. FSUW don't do vague FSUW like a man of action so be a man of action  If you find a promising girl, get your butt on a plane. There are a hundred ways to be successful and a thousand ways to f#ck it up
Kiss the girl, don't ask her first.
Get an apartment not a hotel. DON'T recycle girls

Online 2tallbill

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 As it happens, her rates are about to treble simply to keep away blokes like that.


This brings up another point.

Let's say Ladagirl was charging $38 per hour and had so much work that she was working a hundred hours per week.

Let's say Ladagirl doesn't want to work a hundred hours a week she would rather work 20 hours per week to keep up with Lada Tadpole, Manny, hobbies etc.

So she raises her rates to an amount that limits her work to the point where the supply of her work hours that she wants to work meets the demand of her customers.

Her rates have very little to do with what she needs (for income) it deals almost exclusively with the hours she has available and the demand for her services and what the market will accept.

FSUW are not for entry level daters. FSUW don't do vague FSUW like a man of action so be a man of action  If you find a promising girl, get your butt on a plane. There are a hundred ways to be successful and a thousand ways to f#ck it up
Kiss the girl, don't ask her first.
Get an apartment not a hotel. DON'T recycle girls

Offline bagalia

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Some subjects never go away. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong.

I once saw a busy pizza place in Kharkov and wanted to take the woman out to dinner. She said probably nobody goes there and I must be wrong. Nobody has money for these things you know. But I reminded her that there are cars everywhere and these people have some money, just not her, just not her circle.

My last business was painting fingernails and I paid the girls $1 an hour. That was a low wage to be sure but I got plenty of takers. My lady was just offered a secretary job at a University for $160 a month. She had been working with a printer company for less than that doing sorting. Before that she made even less working for the opera in town.

On the flip side, if you want a true legal translator you can easily pay the $30 an hour and you will get your money's worth.

You actually can live on less than $200 a month, much less. You will have a problem living on the $80 a month you can get off unemployment for sure but if you own your own apartment as many do you can get by with less than that $200. You will not be doing a lot of things but you can eat and pay the utilities.

I would not use an example of a $15,000 car. You can buy a decent looking one for $600 but there is a low, middle and upper class. Each class seems to me to not look much at the others aside from criticizing the upper.

As long as you have a lower class and student translators working for peanuts you will have the money argument. We often deal with women in the lower class so we think it is so with everyone. It is no different than America. With some things you can get great deals and with others you pay more. Some jobs pay much less and some much more. Owning a simple business in Ukraine can be just as costly as one in America. I was paying $50 per square meter and that was cheaper than some other malls by half.

When I originally got into business in Russia as a MOB agency I also thought people were getting gouged. Sure you can get a half decent student translator for peanuts and do not especially require the expert. Sure a rose costs nothing like what you pay. Still in the end you can have real high overhead as a business and you take your profits where you can. 10 years ago I was paying $400 a month for a simple one room office out in the sticks.

And yes, the figures are skewed. As a business you do want to pay taxes on workers and not risk getting caught but you will often find them claiming something like 50% of the actual wage and paying the rest under the table. The result can end up in a wiki page.

Ckott
Misery is the river of the world; everybody row, everybody row.

Offline WestCoast

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Interesting post Stirlitz.  Obviously your potential customer wasn't an economist.  According to the link below the average monthly salary in Ukraine for 2010 was $240USD.  However the average monthly salary of all workers in Ukraine is irrelevant to hiring an individual with specific skills.  The average monthly salary in Ukraine is calculated by taking the monthly salary of all workers in Ukraine, adding them up and then dividing by the number of workers in Ukraine.  All workers are included in this calculation, plumbers, accountants, lawyers, salespeople, the president of Ukraine, etc.  It's an absolutely useless figure to use to determine what to pay an individual with specific skills.

The average monthly salary of all Russian/English, English/Russian interpreters would be more useful but even that would be too general if specialized language skills such as industry specific vocabulary were needed.  It also wouldn't include other useful talents an interpreter might have that are totally unrelated to language skills such as the ability to drive a car or how to negotiate a rental agreement for an apartment or where the best restaurants are in a specific city. 

Gender might also play a role.  Perhaps male customers in Ukraine prefer female interpreters, thereby giving female interpreters the ability to command higher salaries.  Then it could be that this particular customer wants to travel to Ukraine during a time of year when interpreters are in high demand which of course will drive up prices.  There are many more variables that could determine the hourly/daily wage of interpreters in Ukraine.     

http://www.go2kiev.com/view/costs.html
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Offline TwoBitBandit

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Sterlitz, it would be interesting if you could describe how much a representative set of professions make in your area (Odessa and southern Ukraine).

How much does a mechanic make?  A highly skilled English translator like yourself?  A software engineer?  A low-level solider?  A director in a bank?  And how much of that salary is "official" and how much is "paid under the table"?

Offline MissileMe

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200 bucks.  Tee hee hee!!!!   My 3 dogs eat at least 1200 HRV  worth of beef, cottage cheese,  kefir, and vegetables every month.  They'd be very angry if I switched to Pedigree.

Sure you could eat eggs fried in salo, salo and vodka, salo with bread, macaroni with tomato paste stewed in salo, salo and borsch, salo and baked potato, salo with salo with more salo and whipped salo.  You wont live long but at least your hunger will be satisfied after every meal.  In this sense you can survive for less than 200 just like my dogs could survive eating the cheapest dog food. 

Marriage has never been a bargain anywhere in the world.  I take it back.  It's bargain.  Half of your kingdom is at stake in this bargain.  (All things considered, I remember reading somewhere that it is cheaper to buy a hoe every time stanley gets manly than enter holy matrimony.)

Stirlitz, you should have told him:  If you want to MARRY a Ukrainian, you're missing a zero on your budget.  It's not going to be cheap. Because marriage has never been cheap or a bargain.  In fact the man now has to pay for her parents that are most likely living in poverty or near poverty.  The family value that are so nice didnt come from nowhere, it came from her parents that are poor.  You'll be obliged to pay for the nice values.   If you pay me the correct amount, I will teach you the ropes so that you know where you are in your quest.  Now if you want to just dominate a woman, go to the Buddah Bar in Kiev.  You can date a model for about 500 bucks a night.   It's a steal.   You'll never have a better time without any of the headaches attached to holy matrimony.  Just imagine yourself with a model in bed.   I can show that place on the map for 200 USD paid upfront.

Stirlitz, I don't know how you run your business, but if you are only translating, you need to revise your business model.  You need to make "guiding" the vital part of your business.  Anyone can translate, showing the customers what it takes, how much it costs, where are the pitfalls is more important to your business than anything else.  The misinformed westerner should be your best customers.   



Offline WestCoast

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200 bucks.  Tee hee hee!!!!   My 3 dogs eat at least 1200 HRV  worth of beef, cottage cheese,  kefir, and vegetables every month.  They'd be very angry if I switched to Pedigree.

Sure you could eat eggs fried in salo, salo and vodka, salo with bread, macaroni with tomato paste stewed in salo, salo and borsch, salo and baked potato, salo with salo with more salo and whipped salo.  You wont live long but at least your hunger will be satisfied after every meal.  In this sense you can survive for less than 200 just like my dogs could survive eating the cheapest dog food. 

Marriage has never been a bargain anywhere in the world.  I take it back.  It's bargain.  Half of your kingdom is at stake in this bargain.  (All things considered, I remember reading somewhere that it is cheaper to buy a hoe every time stanley gets manly than enter holy matrimony.)

Stirlitz, you should have told him:  If you want to MARRY a Ukrainian, you're missing a zero on your budget.  It's not going to be cheap. Because marriage has never been cheap or a bargain.  In fact the man now has to pay for her parents that are most likely living in poverty or near poverty.  The family value that are so nice didnt come from nowhere, it came from her parents that are poor.  You'll be obliged to pay for the nice values.   If you pay me the correct amount, I will teach you the ropes so that you know where you are in your quest.  Now if you want to just dominate a woman, go to the Buddah Bar in Kiev.  You can date a model for about 500 bucks a night.   It's a steal.   You'll never have a better time without any of the headaches attached to holy matrimony.  Just imagine yourself with a model in bed.   I can show that place on the map for 200 USD paid upfront.

Stirlitz, I don't know how you run your business, but if you are only translating, you need to revise your business model.  You need to make "guiding" the vital part of your business.  Anyone can translate, showing the customers what it takes, how much it costs, where are the pitfalls is more important to your business than anything else.  The misinformed westerner should be your best customers.

Don't need an Russian interpreter for the Buddah Bar in Kiev.  It has an English language website, as does the hotel the bar is located in.  Sorry, MissileMe no $200USD for you.  :laugh: The "models" in the bar probably speak some English, after all it's highly unlikely that the American and European men looking for FSUW speak Russian or Ukrainian.   ???

http://www.buddhabar.com.ua/eng/news/

http://www.khreschatik.kiev.ua/eng/home/
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That means I'm a subject matter expert on all things Russia, Ukraine and UK.

Offline MissileMe

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Dang!!!   I thought I could make a quick buck!!

But hey for 200 bucks I could personally guide them to the exact location without getting lost and ending up somewhere else where the models might be uglier and cost 800 bucks.  That way the customer will save 100 bucks!!    BTW gas and car rental not included in the 200 USD.

English speaking hoes.  Talk about investment.  No wonder they cost so much.   Stirlitz makes how much a month?   Makes me wonder if I am living on the right planet.   

Offline NS1

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Supply and demand, regardless of where you are!
Also some people think they are worth more, maybe yes! maybe no.
hey if you can work 40 hours a week and get paid top dollar good for you!
There is nothing permanent except change.

Offline leeholsen

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yes, i did some reasearch myself on odessa and kiev housing prices previously out of curiosity; and while i'm generalizing; i concluded that Odessa and Houston are about equal in Housing prices and Kiev had prices that I would call California prices.

i.e. housing for 2-3 bedrooms in Odessa would be between 150,00 and 200,000 for average housing, Kiev would easily be over 300,000 or much more depending where you wanted to live in Kiev.

that guy isnt realistic, Ukraine is not some backwater third world country; its an established country with 100's of years of people living in its established cities; the means to live in those cities dont come at a discount just because there's not a McDonalds on every other street corner.  (:)
Eat 'em up Houston Cougars !

Offline Muzh_1

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Igor, you really don't want to deal with people like that. Next you know he would start complainig there are too many foreigners (meaning Ukrainians) there.

Offline Chris

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I am not sure where to post it… feel free to move it where it belongs. OK. This gentleman approached me a month ago and offered a job as his interpreter in Ukraine. He offered $35 a day. I politely declined and explained that this is as much as I charge for an hour, and pointed out that he was a bit mistaken as he assumed the average salary in Ukraine of $200 and based his offer on that figure… See what followed. I will refrain from comments.

I. Unfortunately, you are deeply mistaken about finances. This is OK; many foreigners make this mistake of hearing $200 a month somewhere and assuming that Ukraine is dirt cheap but this is not the case.

S. Igor, I am well aware the average salary in the ukraine is $200 / 1,600 UAH per month. i respect the fact you disagree with this, however you are wrong ,I am right. I have done extensive research  www.wikipedia.com  and talked to many of the Men who either now live in the ukraine, as well as talk to women who live in the ukraine, as well as men who traveled to the Ukraine and successfully met their Wife there. they know all too well the aeverage salary in the Ukraine is $200/1,600 UAH per month.

I. You are funny. You know more about Ukraine than I do! $200 MIGHT be the average salary for the HAVENOTs. However, we obviously have HAVEs in Ukraine too. Tell me who can afford a car with $200 a month if the car costs $10,000 and gasoline is $4.50 per gallone? This is just one example. When you come to Ukraine you will see lots of cars in the street. If you still think that all the people in the cars make $200 a month on the average, you are being ridiculous. Then, have a look at property prices. A small two-room (one-bedroom) apartment in a not too nice area in Odessa costs $50,000 now. A good apartment in the downtown may be $150,000 easily. Again, do you really think that this is possible with the average salary of $200 a month? If you still do, I am not sure about your math and high school.
By the way, I took my car from the shop a few days ago where the front suspension had been repaired. I paid $250 for the job plus $60 in spares. Then I drove to the Crimea which is 300 miles and burned 50 l of gas worth $60. I am glad that my salary is not your 'average' one because this would be 2 months salary just spent on some repairs and a short ride!

S. I am looking to find the Woman of my dreams in the Ukraine. The Woman I will Marry. The Woman I willspend the rest of my life with. The Woman who will be the Mother of my Children. I am not looking to get into petty arguments with you, Igor. you are very wrong, the average salary in the ukraine s $200 per month. I do not wish to argue this point with you. I am right you are wrong. Best of luck to you Igor.

I. Yes. You are right. And gasoline is $0.01 per gallon in Ukraine too :) You made my day. I have not had this kind of laugh for a long time.

S. If you are so smart, why are you living in a shithole of a country like ukraine?? Why don't you move to a wealthy, wonderful country like the US. let's face it, the Ukraine is the "World's Armpit".

I. Oh my god. Why are you looking for a wife in a shithole then?

S. Oh my God, why are you living in the Ukraine?? $200/month??

I. OK, good luck finding your piece of shit! And thank you for a good idea: if I want something, forget the math and keep saying: you are wrong, I am right. I see it works!


Then I blocked him in Skype.


and these guys wonder why they get taken for everything they deserve by some unscrupulous women who know exactly how to treat the cheapskates  :chuckle:
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Offline Chris

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Igor is right but for the wrong reasons.

Igor is worth more because he is worth more, not because he
needs more. How much he needs is irrelevant. How much he is  worth is the only thing that matters.



Spot on Bill, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys!

If you can keep busy charging what you want, then do it, put your prices up if you have too, work smarter, not busier! tiphat
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Offline Stirlitz

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Wow, so many responses. Unfortunately, I cannot answer everybody, will do that later.
Igor, what is the average salary in Ukraine now?
I have no idea… And it greatly depends. On the walk of life and area first of all. Let me guess. If we exclude Kiev and some remote areas as extremes, on the average… Actually, I must admit that $200 might indeed be the average salary for the poor/modest/older people. However, the poor are not the only people in this country (yet). We still have the middle class. For example, my friend who lives in the 8th floor in my building (I live in the same apartment on the 3rd) works for a company that deals with oil supplies. He drives BMW and burns $100 a months on gasoline alone to drive to the office. I think he makes about $500 a month — I don’t remember for sure (I think he told me). I would say he is well-off but not rich at all. There are other examples and I think that $500 would be a typical salary for the middle class.

My mother-in-law used to make about $300 when she worked in a bank (by the way, her supervisor had $4,000 a month, so the entire bank department where she worked boasted a high average salary even though most people got $200 to $400 I think). Then they cut her salary when the recession hit, then she was jobless, now she has another job that pays well. Father-in-law makes very little, I think less than $200 (he works as a night guard and generally he should not work because he has a serious heart attack). But I must admit when I visit them I see that they eat pretty much the same: noodles and soups. My wife and I spend much more on food and it is diverse. The funny thing is they like to mark holidays and cook a lot of tasty food but the rest of the time their food is very basic. We, on the other hand, do not care for holidays and if we want to have something tasty we just go and get it. Well they do not live like poor and in fact are quite comfortable. But they do not have a car and cannot afford more that the basic things in life. Also, they are older folks who remember the USSR and are used to living on a shoestring. They know how to save and never waste. We younger generations like to have fun sometimes. As a result parents-in-law may even have newer home appliances than we do and keep the apartment in better order even though we have more money.

Now, if we consider rich people… Here I have no idea what is the typical salary. On of the examples is mother-in-law’s supervisor in the bank: a young man, good-for-nothing, but he is someone’s son. Therefore, he gets tenfold of my mother-in-law who is much older, has good education and had to teach him how to work… How much his parents get you can guess yourself.
I have done extensive research www.wikipedia.com ...[/i] 
  :ROFL:
Oh yes that made me laugh my neck off too :)
Igor Kalinin
Russian Translator/Interpreter/Guide/Agent for Odessa, the Crimea and the rest of Ukraine
www.odessaguide.net