KZBlog

I’ve been reading articles about how rising prices are affecting Kazakhstan. A lot of inflation statistics are cited along with comments from government officials. I thought people might be interested in how the financial crisis is affecting real people. Now my salary and my wife’s salary are significantly above the national average. I do know people with salaries of $500 a month who forgo eating dinner a few days a week just to get by. I can’t claim any sob stories like that. Nonetheless, beef at Gros supermarkets here in Astana just hit 1200 tenge a kilogram (about $4.54 a pound). A few weeks ago, it was 1000 tenge. A few months ago, 850 tenge. A year or so ago, it was 600 tenge. Prices visibly go up, especially at the larger chain supermarkets. Even at the bazaars, 400 tenge a kilogram was the market price for ground beef two years ago. Now people ask for 600-700 tenge. It gets to the point where planning a budget is impossible because you never know how much something will cost.

Taxi rides are another area that has seen serious inflation, presumably due to rising oil prices. Until last year, 200-300 tenge was a normal price to pay to move around the center of town. Now taxis don’t move for less than 500 tenge, according to the drivers who wait outside our door. If you want to go two blocks, that’ll be $6.

The spikes that occurred in prices of cooking oil, bread, flour and pasta have not receded at all. Cooking oil prices went up 50% last year and stay at 320-400 tenge per liter. Even Sultan pasta, made here in Kazakhstan and always the cheapest bargain, raised its price from 55 tenge a bag (since I first came here, Sultan has costs 55 tenge a bag) to 65-75 tenge.

How has it affected us? We are eating a lot more chicken and ground beef than we used to. Lamb (at 1600 tenge a kilo) is off the menu pretty much, as is fish that doesn’t come in a can. I’m hauling out to the bazaar once a week or so to buy the giant bags of generic pasta. We have a car so that makes it possible for us. However, hauling back huge bags full of food from the bazaar on a bus is a whole fun experience that many people have to suffer through.

At the same time, Astana has never been a cheap city relative to the average income. Real estate prices are equivalent to big cities in the US (if you don’t believe me, look up what $500 000 will buy you in the US and what it will buy you here). Gas has long been close to the same price as in high income countries as well: 90 tenge a liter is about $2.80 per gallon (which now seems quite reasonable a price, I realize).

In short, the crisis in prices is real, it affects real people, it has been going on for a while and it shows no signs of going away.

As always, I love getting comments, critiques, disagreements, other stories or anecdotes. How are you coping with the pricing crisis?