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Comment by naoru | Hacker News Reader

115 soviet rubles weren't equivalent to 2021 $5, that's a gross miscalculation. it's more like $450. some sources claim that soviet ruble is equivalent to around 220-240 2018 Russian rubles, and in 2021 rubles it's even more.

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Hard to compare exchange rates like that, especially for the Soviet ruble. One way to look at it is buying power equivalence. I found some sources for the 1980s in the USSR that give typical household incomes in the range of about 75 - 300 rubles per month. That gives some sense for the cost for the average person. Around a month's wages, give or take. Of course, prices can be misleading in a command economy. One might simply not have been able to buy it at the official price, and either waited and waited, or went black/grey market. Source: http://www.roiw.org/1993/23.pdf "INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN THE U.S.S.R. IN THE 1980S"

115 soviet rubles is approximately what my mother and father, both engineers, received as a monthly wage. Their wage was 120 rubles per month.

So if I wanted to buy an MK-52, that would mean that our family income would be halved for a full month.

Warning: the following is completely, utterly off topic, but it might amuse some.

I just days ago solved a minor, but real 2021 tax problem related to the 1975 USSR ruble exchange rate.

My significant other and I own a modest countryside property in Latvia, EU. We live in Belgium. Belgian real estate taxes on foreign property are calculated based upon a fictitious 1975 rental income. Don't ask why.

Only:

- Latvia was Soviet occupied in 1975.

- There were no market rates for home rentals in 1975 Soviet Latvia.

- Belgium used the Belgian franc at the time and has moved to the euro since.

- The Soviet Union at the time used rubles. Trustworthy exchange rates were tricky.

- Since 1975, Latvia has gone through Soviet ruble (1975-1991), Latvian Ruble or "repšiki" (1991-1993), Latvian lats (1991-2013) and euro (2014- current).

I just know that:

- A decent 1970's Soviet wage would have been around 100 SUR.

- Housing usually cost about 3 percent of one's wage. Let's say 3 SUR/month, or 36 SUR/year.

- In 1975, USDSUR was about 0.73 using the limited use highly artificial official exchange rate [0].

- On 19750701, USDBEF was 35.44 BEF [1].

- BEF was converted to EUR in 2001 at 40.3399 BEF.

So the highest possible taxation base for our real estate taxation probably should be 43.32€ (36 SUR/.73 USDSUR*35.44USDBEF/40.3390BEFEUR). Quite sure the tax man will be amused.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_ruble#Historical_offici...

[1] https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england-spot/histo...

> Housing usually cost about 3 percent of one's wage

And people tell me Socialism was bad

Yep. You can have dirt-cheap housing (which won't be yours btw) and cheap transportation, but you will have to overpay for rest of the goods. And wait in extraordinary long queues.

You can experience some of the that life yourself - in North Korea or Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia for example.

I'm from Vietnam and not old enough to have lived though the communist days but my first family house was the one my dad had gotten from his job. It was ours, he sold it after 10 years, maybe communism in Vietnam was not as strict as others.

I have definitely heard stories about food stamps and queuing for foods.

Just to give a perspective, some prices from eighties:

1. A subway ticket: 5 kopecks (0.05 rouble)

2. An ice cream: 10-20 kopecks (depending on kind)

3. A loaf of bread: 14-18 kopecks (depending on kind)

4. 1 kg of meat at a regular store: 2 roubles (generally bad quality and subject to shortages)

5. 1 kg of meat at a "farmer market": ~ 10 roubles (good quality)

6. A bottle of vodka (0.5 l, i.e. about a pint): 4-6 roubles

7. A pair of shoes: 20-30 roubles etc

> that's a gross miscalculation

Indeed.

> it's more like $450

That's a gross miscalculation too.

The black market exchange rate was about $1 = 6 RUB.

This results in 115 RUB = $20 in 1985, or $50 in 2021.

(1) http://www.russiandogs.net/exchange-rate-russian-rubles-to-a...

(2) https://www.quora.com/Was-it-true-that-while-the-Soviet-Unio...

(3) https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

But dollars bought on black market were not used for buying staple food or common household items, but generally for buying things (say, from foreigners, or in special Beryoska stores) that were not otherwise available in Soviet Union at all. (Mere possession of foreign currency was a crime, so dollars were not used in normal day-to-day operations). So the black market rate was heavily inflated and is quite misleading too.

Purchase parity calculations for comparable goods available in both US and USSR make much more sense; although not simple, because of very different price structure.

115 roubles would buy 4-5 gallons of vodka, or ~25 pounds of good quality meat. How much this would cost in 2021 US dollars?

> the black market rate was heavily inflated

True, but at least people could buy/sell dollars at the rate.

> Purchase parity calculations for comparable goods available in both US and USSR make much more sense

Based on the number, GP used official exchange rate set by the communist party.

An average monthly salary for an engineer or a teacher was about 160-180 roubles. Factory workers or track drivers were paid more, around 200 roubles.

This can give you a better idea on what 115 roubles were; converting 1980 roubles to 2021 dollars is completely misleading.

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