Based on what I heard, mostly Russian pop music, these days – not so much by way of Western stuff, though you do hear it from time to time. Russia actually has a quite vibrant domestic pop/rock scene – lots of local talent running around there, with a pretty substantial market, given basically all of the FSU countries speak Russian to some degree or other.

There is quite a bit of variety to it, too. When I was down in Dagestan, there was a LOT of local pop music infused with what I can only call “Caucasian rhythms” – hard to describe, but if you listen to this at some length, you’ll get an idea of what I mean.

(I’m not saying it’s GOOD music, mind you – I can’t stand most pop music – but it isn’t Western.)

So, short version, you would need to ask a Russian soldier of some experience just what that 200k rubles a month actually means in-hand.

I don’t disagree on any particular point, sir. All I will say is that, to my knowledge, the Russian standard income tax rate is 13% for incomes under 5M rubles p.a. (very roughly US$55,000), and goes up to 15% for anything higher than that, for all domestic earners based in Russia. And their VAT is 20%, though that gets passed through to the end consumer.

So, relative to American tax rates, as far as I am aware, the average Russian soldier pays less in taxes. All of the other contributions and such – I have no idea, but it would be worth asking.

Have they purged the Western pop sound from their spaces?

Thank you for the write-up, pictures and details on the soldier pay. Great read.

Military pay: 2000 a month is comparable to most western pay and, in terms of PPP, quite a bit higher. Note, though, that military pay, in any army of which I have any experience or observation, is complicated. I do not have experience of the Russian Army so I cannot say how complicated it is there. But we have some pay records of the Roman Army and the thing that jumps out from them is…complicated; additions for this, additions for that, subtractions for something else and for that over there. I was an adjutant for a not very large battalion is SOCOM and spent about a third of my time fighting with finance over the exceptionally complicated pay there.

And then there are the contributions. When I was a private in the 101st, on payday, fifty fucking charities would form a C in the day room and we’d have to go through and give each of them a little something…out of some 288 dollars a month…which explains a good deal of why I hate charities to this day. I have seen some references to the Russians also extracting some “voluntary” contributions. The only good thing about CFC – another corrupt charity – is that it let us close the dayrooms to all the panhandlers.

And then there are the allowances and special pays. Everybody has them, from language to combat to separation to rations to dive to airborne to flight to God alone knows what. When you add that complex factor in, our pay is a lot higher than it looks but some armies are a lot lower than appearances suggest. The British Army, for one example, pays about a third more than we do, but gets taxed more, while the ration scale is sufficiently disappointing that they seem to spend more of their greater pre-tax pay eating on the economy.

So, short version, you would need to ask a Russian soldier of some experience just what that 200k rubles a month actually means in-hand.