While Russians women truly value the opportunity to correspond
with foreign men and most often invest considerable effort into answering
your written inquiries, they too are wary of the Russian Postal System.
The cautious person would seldom send their correspondence via unregistered,
regular mail. To compensate, they often send foreign-bound mail in registered-letter
form, at a cost of around 24 rubles for a single letter (approx. 30 rubles
= $1.00 USD). If all goes well the letter will reach a US in approximately
three weeks. The timeframe is similar sending "registered mail"
from the USA to Russia.
Russia is truly a poor country. While Togliatti's industrial
nature affords local residents a higher than average worker wage, please
consider that the salaries in question here range from approximately 400-1600
rubles per month. Teachers may earn 500-1000 rubles per month, Civil Engineers
900-1200 rubles per month, and industrial workers may earn 1200-2000 rubles
per month (overall range 15.00 to 79.00 US dollars per month).
Therefore, the teacher who earns 25 rubles a day must work
that entire day and into-the-next to pay for her Registered letter's posting!
Even the higher-earning factory worker must work for two and one-half hours
to do the same. American and western European men . . . . imagine spending
a like-amount of your earnings to mail a single letter!