Monthly wages in Moscow average at about 57,000 rubes ($1,800), although most workers receive substantially less than that, a city official said.
“It is not that we all live affluently here, it is related to the fact that in Moscow there is a big rift between the low-paid and the high-paid,” Deputy Mayor for Social Development Leonid Pechatnikov said, m24.ru reported.
The differences between the salaries of Russian managers and their subordinates is among the highest in the world, and it is growing, a study by the international consulting company Hay Group showed, Vedomosti reported.
Russian managers in 2013 earn on average 12.5 times more than the workers beneath them, up from 11.1 times more in 2011.
For comparison, in the U.S. and Western Europe, managers' salaries are about 3.5 times higher than those of their subordinates.
The average may also be skewed by the fact that Moscow contains more billionaires than any other city in the world — 84, with a combined fortune of more than $366 billion, according to Forbes magazine’s 2013 list of the top 10 billionaires cities.
In 2012 the average Russia-wide salary was 23,600 rubles, RIA Novosti reported.
