Thought 2024 was a race for survival? Charming.
Welcome to 2025. Here, your salary is just a number in a banking app. It melts faster than the ice in my March latte on a veranda.
I took a walk through the market. I peeked into the wallets of pilots, team leads, and those guys with yellow backpacks. To answer honestly — what does life inside the MKAD really cost? No sugarcoating. No “average temperature in the hospital” statistics that give native Muscovites a nervous tic.
By the way, if you’re just planning your move or want to understand how this city is wired, start with the reua.ru homepage — my colleagues and I collect everything you need to know about the Moscow reality.
Now — let’s talk money.
🏙 Only Lovers Left Alive (and IT Specialists)
Official statistics paint a pastoral picture. The average salary in Moscow has broken the 205,000 RUB (~2,440 USD) mark (net). Sounds like “life is good,” doesn’t it?
Don’t rush to throw your resignation letter in your boss’s face just yet.
The devil is in the details — just like the best parties in this city. There is the median salary. This is the amount a real Muscovite in the metro receives. Not the mythical “son of mom’s friend.”
And it’s stomping around the 129,000 RUB (~1,535 USD) level.
Feel the difference? Almost double. This is our tax on capital city showing off. If less than 145k drops onto your card, congratulations. You are in the 65% of the population who play Tetris every month — trying to fit rent, food, and life into one paycheck.
🔥 Dry Numbers (To Understand the Scale)
- Median (Reality) — 129,200 RUB (~1,540 USD)
- Average (Stats) — 205,100 RUB (~2,440 USD)
- Top 3% (The Elite) — 512,000+ RUB (~6,100+ USD)
- Comfort Entry Ticket — 150,000 RUB (~1,785 USD) per person
🏗 Who is Riding High and Who is… Just Working
I broke the market down into sectors. Find yourself. And decide whether to pop the champagne or update your CV.
💻 IT and Telecom — The New Nobility
The market has cooled slightly. But juniors here still earn more than gray-haired professors.
- Junior — 140,000 RUB (~1,665 USD) (not bad for a start, right?)
- Senior/Lead — 350,000 – 550,000+ RUB (~4,165–6,550+ USD)
The Verdict — If you know Python, you are elite. No? Learn to politely ask a neural network to do your job.
✈️ Aviation — Sky, Plane, Mortgage
Pilots are wildly expensive again. The staff shortage is terrifying.
- Captain (PIC) — 450,000 – 650,000 RUB (~5,360–7,740 USD)
- Flight Attendants — 80,000 – 120,000 RUB (~950–1,430 USD)
The Nuance — The romance ends where the 4/2 schedule with night flights to Norilsk begins.
🚲 Logistics — A Plot for Guy Ritchie
Here is the real drama. Couriers earn more than office clerks. Deal with it. The person delivering your poke bowl might be making more than the guy balancing debits and credits in a Class A office.
- Taxi (Comfort+) — up to 200,000 RUB (~2,380 USD)
- Couriers — 100,000 – 140,000 RUB (~1,190–1,665 USD)
💅 Beauty Industry — The Face Tax
In Moscow, you can skip eating. But you cannot look bad.
- Top Masters — 150,000 – 250,000 RUB (~1,785–2,975 USD)
This brings in more than a Philology degree. (I’m not crying. It’s just the Moscow rain in my eye.)
🐺 Finance — The Wolves of Tverskaya-Yamskaya
Bonuses are back. And they are fat.
- Investment Banking — from 400,000 RUB (~4,760 USD) to infinity
Insight — Stress here is paid at a double rate. But note — you will give half of it to a psychotherapist.
⚔️ Battle of the Years — 2024 vs 2025
What changed? Inflation, with the appetite of a predator, ate your 15% raise for breakfast.
Nominally, salaries grew by 20%. In reality, we became maybe 3-5% richer. In 2024, 150,000 RUB was an “okay” sum. In 2025, this is the “well, enough for food and a taxi to work” level.
The main driver is personnel hunger. There are physically no people. Companies are outbidding for specialists, inflating salary bubbles.
🛒 The Free Man Index
Let’s calculate honestly. Without illusions.
To live in Moscow alone — renting an apartment not facing a power plant (60-70k), eating better than discounted buckwheat (30k), taking taxis, and occasionally seeing the sea — you need a minimum of 150,000 RUB net.
Family with a child? Multiply by two. Better by three. A budget of 300,000 RUB for a family is not a luxury. This is the base level of “not looking at yellow price tags” in the supermarket.
If you earn 100k and rent housing — you are not living. You are surviving in beautiful scenery. Harsh? Yes. But true.
🍷 Instead of an Epilogue — The Price of Your Peace
You know what the main irony is?
We chase these numbers — 200, 300, 500 thousand. Hoping that after the next raise, peace will come.
But Moscow doesn’t work like that. This city takes a commission not only in money. It takes it in time. In nerves. In that feeling of life that we lose in the transits between “Kievskaya” and “Kurskaya” stations.
A high salary in Moscow is often not a reward for talent. It is compensation. For life in eternal deadline mode. For the gray winter that lasts six months. For loneliness in a crowd.
Is it worth it? Everyone decides for themselves. Staring at a bank push notification on the 15th.
But remember — the most expensive things in the world — love, silence, and time — are still not for sale. Even for Rubles. Even for very big ones.