While planning your travel around Russia, an idea becoming more and more attractive with the introduction of an e-visa scheduled for 2021, you may want to know what’s the cost of living in the country’s different cities. Not that it is going to save you a fortune or impact your travel budget somehow but anyway might be of help. Here is the rating of all Russian regions’ capitals ranked by how much people there spend for a living. And no, Moscow is not the number one when we talk about money.
Some Important Notes
— the rating is based on the Russian Statistics Agency’s (Rosstat) survey for 2019. That may seem a bit obsolete, but there have been no strong regional economic’ growth or fall, the economic impact of the COVID-19 and the drop in oil prices affected the whole country;
— Rosstat’s survey contains the figures on a few hundreds of Russian cities and towns. The base for calculations is 275 goods and services, vodka included;
— we selected only the capitals of Russian regions, which means you’ll not find the towns of the Moscow region and the Leningrad region as they don’t have formal capitals. The government of the Moscow region sits in Moscow, the government of the Leningrad region sits in St. Petersburg;
— Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Sevastopol are federal cities like Bremen or Hamburg in Germany. They naturally don’t have their capitals and they are not the capitals of regions (contrary to the widely accepted wrong assumption that St. Petersburg is the capital of the Leningrad region). Read more about Russia’s administrative organization here;
— all the cities are ranked concerning the average cost of living which is 1. Figure 1 for Krasnoyarsk means that the cost of living here is Russia’s average; for example, 0.88 for Kemerovo means that people here spend 12 percent less than the average Russian resident;
— you will find the absolute prices for St. Petersburg in this post. The city has 1.12, so knowing this and having the absolute figures you can approximately calculate how much a cup of cappuccino may cost in Irkutsk or Saransk or wherever.
The Most Expensive And The Cheapest Russian Cities
Rank | City | Region | Result |
1 | Magas | Republic Of Ingushetia | 0.72 |
2-3 | Belgorod | Belgorod region | 0.86 |
2-3 | Saransk | Republic Of Mordovia | 0.86 |
4 | Grozny | Republic Of Chechnya | 0.87 |
5-10 | Nalchik | Kabardino-Balkar Republic | 0.88 |
5-10 | Vladikavkaz | The Republic Of Northern Ossetia | 0.88 |
5-10 | Penza | Penza region | 0.88 |
5-10 | Cheboksary | Republic Of Chuvashia | 0.88 |
5-10 | Omsk | Omsk region | 0.88 |
5-10 | Kemerovo | Kemerovo region | 0.88 |
11-14 | Kursk | Kursk region | 0.89 |
11-14 | Lipetsk | Lipetsk region | 0.89 |
11-14 | Yoshkar-Ola | Republic Of Mari El | 0.89 |
11-14 | Saratov | Saratov region | 0.89 |
15-19 | Kostroma | Kostroma region | 0.90 |
15-19 | Orel | Orel region | 0.90 |
15-19 | Orenburg | Orenburg region | 0.90 |
15-19 | Kazan | Republic Of Tatarstan | 0.90 |
15-19 | Tambov | Tambov region | 0.90 |
20-23 | Volgograd | Volgograd region | 0.91 |
20-23 | Chelyabinsk | Chelyabinsk region | 0.91 |
20-23 | Cherkessk | Karachay-Cherkess Republic | 0.91 |
20-23 | Barnaul | Altai region | 0.91 |
24-26 | Voronezh | Voronezh region | 0.92 |
24-26 | Elista | Republic Of Kalmykia | 0.92 |
24-26 | Makhachkala | Republic Of Dagestan | 0.92 |
27 | Maykop | Republic Of Adygea | 0.93 |
28-29 | Izhevsk | Republic Of Udmurtia | 0.94 |
28-29 | Kirov | Kirov region | 0.94 |
30-32 | Ryazan | Ryazan region | 0.95 |
30-32 | Kyzyl | Republic Of Tuva | 0.95 |
30-32 | Abakan | Republic Of Khakassia | 0.95 |
33-38 | Bryansk | Bryansk region | 0.96 |
33-38 | Tula | Tula region | 0.96 |
33-38 | Astrakhan | Astrakhan region | 0.96 |
33-38 | Rostov-on-Don | Rostov region | 0.96 |
33-38 | Stavropol | Stavropol region | 0.96 |
33-38 | Samara | Samara region | 0.96 |
39 | Ufa | Republic Of Bashkortostan | 0.97 |
40-47 | Kaluga | Kaluga region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Tver | Tver region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Krasnodar | Krasnodar region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Tomsk | Tomsk region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Ulan-Ude | Republic Of Buryatia | 0.98 |
40-47 | Kurgan | Kurgan region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Novosibirsk | Novosibirsk region | 0.98 |
40-47 | Irkutsk | Irkutsk region | 0.98 |
48-50 | Ivanovo | Ivanovo region | 0.99 |
48-50 | Veliky Novgorod | Novgorod region | 0.99 |
48-50 | Simferopol | Republic Of Crimea | 0.99 |
51-54 | Pskov | Pskov region | 1.00 |
51-54 | Krasnoyarsk | Krasnoyarsk region | 1.00 |
51-54 | Perm | Perm region | 1.00 |
51-54 | Chita | Zabaykalsky region | 1.00 |
55-59 | Smolensk | Smolensk region | 1.01 |
55-59 | Yekaterinburg | Sverdlovsk region | 1.01 |
55-59 | Vologda | Vologda region | 1.01 |
55-59 | Nizhny Novgorod | Nizhny Novgorod region | 1.01 |
55-59 | Tyumen | Tyumen region | 1.01 |
60-62 | Vladimir | Vladimir region | 1.02 |
60-62 | Yaroslavl | Yaroslavl region | 1.02 |
60-62 | Blagoveshchensk | Amur region | 1.02 |
63 | Kaliningrad | Kaliningrad region | 1.03 |
64-65 | Sevastopol | | 1.04 |
64-65 | Gorno-Altaysk | Altai Republic | 1.04 |
66-67 | Petrozavodsk | Republic Of Karelia | 1.08 |
66-67 | Syktyvkar | Komi Republic | 1.08 |
68 | Birobidzhan | Jewish Autonomous region | 1.11 |
69-70 | Arkhangelsk | Arkhangelsk region | 1.12 |
69-70 | St. Petersburg | | 1.12 |
71 | Khanty-Mansiysk | Khanty-Mansi Autonomous district | 1.18 |
72 | Vladivostok | Primorye region | 1.19 |
73 | Murmansk | Murmansk region | 1.23 |
74 | Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk | Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk region | 1.25 |
75 | Khabarovsk | Khabarovsk region | 1.27 |
76 | Moscow | | 1.29 |
77 | Yakutsk | Republic Of Yakutia (Sakha) | 1.31 |
78 | Salekhard | Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district | 1.32 |
79 | Magadan | Magadan region | 1.35 |
80 | Naryan-Mar | Nenets autonomous district | 1.41 |
81 | Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky | Kamchatka region | 1.52 |
82 | Anadyr | Chukotka autonomous district | 1.62 |
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