Can I get an English teaching job in Moscow or St. Petersburg as a white American with a fake degree?
What's the pay for teachers?
Shit dude are you me? Because that's my exact question.
fuck. ive been debating this for a while too
I'm an English tutor in Moscow, ask me stuff.
>>1062628
is the pay enough to maintain a comfortable lifestyle? not like ballin, but not living in some russian hobbit hole
>>1062632
Alright, gonna put on my trip for a little bit to explain some stuff:
First of all, do you have any other degree that is in any way related to teaching? Pedagogics, Linguistics, stuff like that. Degrees provide +10% bonus to your salary if you wish to work in some language center.
What is language center you ask? Why, 'tis the most wonderful place for an outsider like you: they happily employ foreigners, give them their our workbooks, their curriculum, their program. I've heard that they pay around 40-75$ per class (1,5 hours).
Or you can just go rogue and find your own clientelle. As in "I'm an English native speaker, hire me!". That would work except for the fact that everyone and their grandma are starting to abuse tutoring.
*cough*no taxes *cough*
So, you are gonna have to either lower your pay at first (around 22$/hr) or find someone who can hook you up with some rich people who are dying to learn English from "an original source".
But who's stopping you from doing both? While being some language center employee you can try to promote yourself among students and tell them "if you need extra lessons, feel free to holla at me *wink-wink*".
Now, let's break down Moscow expenses list. Groceries first.
Scenario "A" a.k.a. "I can cook my own shit".
You're golden. We make our own stuff here and it's not genetically modified piece of trash that gives you cancer. You will really spend only about 7-10 thousand rubles per month. That's 100-130$ for ya.
Scenario "B", as in "I am really more of microwave kind of guy".
Still cool. Buy some chicken nuggets now and then and for the love of good, buy that multicooker. Yankees have their George Foreman grill, Russkies have their multicookers. You won't even need to mail order a bride with that thing. You can masturbate while this thing will cook you some freshly killed chicken with rice we grow ourselves because our country is huge as fuck and it's not even compensating for anything!
(cont)
>>1062637
>>1062632
Alright, I'm back before cooldown for posting is over.
Anyway, buy a multicooker and you'll forget about McDonalds and shit. Seriously, it's that good.
If you can't cook for shit and prefer multicooker to do everything for you (along with some occassional pizza and cup ramen) your groceries will total to 15 thousand rubles max. That's 210$.
Scenario "C", most commonly known as "I eat two family-size pizza for breakfast".
*sigh* Well, I'm trying to be more tolerant for this kind of people since my former BBF was a very talented programmer before he discovered My Little Pony. After that he started eating fast food exclusively. Ordering pizza (which is cheap as fuck, I swear to god, 40 cm pizza from Papa John's is 6$ AND YOU DON'T NEED TO TIP THAT POOR FUCK WHO DELIVERED IT), eating *delish* burgers and fries found their way into the heart of my beloved capital.
Anyway, your grocery bill will total to 30 G's at least. That's 420$, time to blaze it!
Renting out is tricky. Here we do have A LOT of fastly moving real estate. That essentially means that you're renting out apartment A for, say, 350$/month (that's a whole apartment for you, you double foreigner, not just one room) and SUDDENLY, your neighbour decides to go to his DACHA (country house, essentially, everyone Russian has one, part of the culture. Kind of like Americans have crushing debts since college, only you can live there for life and not pay a dime) and he doesn't need his apartment B anymore. And he decides to rent it out for 17 grand. (that's only 240$, less than Nintendo 3DS, I swear to god, anon)
Point is - you have to stay on your toes. Be quick and you'll land yourself a nice apartment. My female friend (not even once made out with her, but she's 10 out 10, like every girl in Russia, except for my late babooshka, she was solid 11 when she was young) found herself a nice apartment for 10 thousand this way (142$).
(cont)
>>1062640
>>1062637
>>1062632
And did I tell you that her apartment has a bar counter and wall-sized plasma TV? All because the owner wanted to leave for his dacha. I swear, Russians are borderline crazy about these rickety shacks of ours.
But wait, there's more!
Just like every fucking city on this highly polluted planet, we have various "Russian expats"/"Visiting Russia'/"Escaping Donald Trump regime" kind of groups where you can literally post one line "need apt halp" and you will be swarmed will offers to co-share an apartment with some smoking hot latina who fled to Russia because she felt too liberated in her country and our ironfist democtatorship suits her just fine. Don't you want that? Are you a fag? I date a Russian balerina (that's right you visa-less bastard, she does splits on my dick while you are thinking "Should I or should I not go to the country with the prettiest women on earth?") and I would still tap that beaner.
Anyway, 100$ is a starting price for an apartment. Plus groceries, depends on your cooking skills - from 100 to 450$. That's 500-700$ in total.
Anything else is free. No club entrance fee, the booze is cheap (this is Russia we're talking about), the city is huge (you can get Lost in Translation here, you Bill Murray wannabe), the pace of life is fast - just how I like it.
Bottom line is - you'll never get bored. Plus your lack of Russian language will be a plus, many language centers prefer their teachers not to speak Russian anyway. Fuck if I know why they do it!
1000$ and Moscow will be your playground.
I spend like 200$ per month because I have my 40 sq.m flat and I do everything my little Grinch heart desires. Seriously, I don't pay taxes because I do private tutoring and I earn 1500-3000$ per month while working 20 hours per week TOPS.
You decide if you want to live like that, you wishy washy first world country dweller.
Any additional questions are welcomed.
>>1062642
I have a masters but not in english/teaching/education. Would I be able to earn more in a language center?
>>1062637
>>1062640
>>1062642
You make it sound so great. I'm sure it isn't like that. But that sounds really interesting and I will probably look into it. I'm going to Russia this summer since I've never been yet, but I'm still finishing school. If I have a bachelors in something other than teaching (software engineering) will it still be easy to get teaching English jobs? I'm studying Russian too by the way.
>>1062637
You almost make it sound like you don't even need a degree to do one of those jobs.
Do you? Cause if not and my job shits out and my PMC backup buddy can't help me I'd sure do that.
>>1062637
>>1062640
>>1062642
Mexicant here, could I make all that shit you said with a systems engineery degree from a Mexican university? Also what kind of accreditation you need to teach english? I used to work here teaching 7-8 year old kids with a bullats certificate but that was years ago, also do you have the contact for some of those language centers?
>>1062613
I'm a English teacher in Vietnam, I never taught in Russia but I've done quite a lot of research on it and have met a few people who have.
Basically Russia kinda sucks right now to be teaching English, the economy is in the toilet and wages have stagnated while costs have increased. I've talked to teachers in both Moscow and St. Petersburg and both have told me that they barely make enough to get by, you have to be very frugal. Hopefully the economy will eventually rebound and it wont be so bad.
The good news is that because the economy is bad, many teachers are leaving which makes the market less competitive. But you definitely need a degree. If they catch you with a fake degree they will arrest you, and you do not want to be sitting in Russian prison.
RussianIsHere
Above some guy said that you could rent an apartment for 100$ - in Moscow or St. Pt. you cant. In small cities - possibly, but for Moscow real prices are around 400$+/month, highly depends on part of the city. You could live in the Podmoskovie - in cities near Moscow, and ther's a chance to find apartments for 300$.
About food - if youre cooking - 100-200$/month. If not - depends on you.
Don't know about salaries, but I really doubht that you could make more than 1000$/month, because, as said above, we're in a deep ass with no visible opportunities to get out of it in near future.
Ask questiona if needed.
Bymping for interst
>>1063203
can you teach in vietnam with a fake degree
Alright, folks. Part Deux.
100$ for renting is only possible if you're willing to co-share an apartment, which I'm sure you can do.
If not then you should aim at something like 400$ (but that's a good one, not in some Bumblefuck outskirts of Moscow).
Plus, I can sometimes hook you up with some proofreading odd jobs if you're into that sort of thing. I'm always willing to help my foreign bros to live and let let in Moscow. It's a good place to stay once you get used to -20C winter.
Honestly, my foreign friend earns 50$/hour JUST for the fact that he's a foreigner.
He used to sell cars before. No past experience, he just TALKS to students.
