How to Live Well on Nothing a Year

William Thackeray titled the 36th chapter of Vanity Fair "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year". Throughout this and the next few chapters, Thackeray informs his readers how Rebecca manages to live in the most luxuriant fashion on "nothing a year". In short - she is up to no good, swindles and exploits everyone, making quite the profit and building up a secret stash of jewels for herself (unbeknownst to her husband). But doesn't she, after all, have the right to such behavior? Don't other people chase after their own "vanities" at the expense of others? Was not she herself a victim of the world? Why shouldn't she profit when she has a chance?

In Ukraine, one can find luxury around every corner. Fashion, particularly women's fashion is a chief concern. An American nurse in her late 30s was making hospital visits and left her coat in the coatroom. The worker there, dressed in grubs herself, spurned to take the coat, said it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen and that the nurse was much too young to wear such a coat. The Coat was warm. It was practical. It was in fact, like most winter coats you would see in America - especially in the Pacific Northwest, for everyday wear. It wasn't fur lined; it wasn't a smart Pea Coat - just your standard microfiber hooded winter jacket.

Walking the downtown streets of Kiev and riding the metro, you see people dressed to the nines. Smart suits, tailored jackets, the latest mobile phone or Armani Bag. There are no amazing bargains in Kiev (or if there are - no one that I’ve met knows of them). As one man said, Kiev has abandoned the communist dictator for a moneyed tyrant - it is now money - or the appearance of money that accomplishes anything and everything.

And so people try to live as well as they can on nothing a year
$400p/month Avgas Salary in Kiev
$350 - Average price of 1 ram apartment a 40min metro ride from center
$1 - 10 large eggs
$2.50 - 1 lb of ground beef
25 cents - Loaf of white Bread
$1.75 - - 1 Gallon of boxed long-life milk


For the majority of people - they don't succeed in living very well at all.

However, others manage to live very well indeed.
A recent acquaintance of ours makes a living installing heated-flooring. He was apparently - one of the first in Ukraine to begin doing this and has been allover the former soviet Union installing his heating system. Additionally, he does other building and remodeling work. Obviously, his skill and the uniqueness of his work attract some very rich people. It also attracts people who want to appear rich and live very well on nothing a year. Having agreed on a recent job, building a pool house/sauna for a named price, the Down payment of which was a quarter of the agreed upon sum- the Homeowner - upon completion of the work- refused to pay the remaining sum and less than half of the agreed upon price - Wanting to at least receive something for his weeks (and his employees) weeks of work - he decided to accept this sum - but on going to fetch it - was chased off by a man w/ a gun, and he went home without money.

Obviously - we heard only one side of the story. However, Ukraine ranks as the country of highest corruption in Europe - which is understandable considering that 52% of Ukrainians believe that bribes and other forms of corruption are justifiable. Why is it justifiable? Easily, little public trust exists - which means that everyone, in the public sphere, is out to get you - so whatever you can do to get ahead, to get by, is justified. It is important to note that this mentality relates to the PUBLIC Sphere - the walking down the street passing nameless faces sphere - Once you have crossed into the sphere of acquaintance - and then fallen farther into the sphere of friendship - you will find that suddenly you have lots of people looking out for you - making sure you aren’t paying too much to your door keeper, have found the right medicines in the drugstore, don't walk in such-and such a place alone at night - etc. The void of trust - and even amiability in the public sphere is made up for 100 fold in personal friendships. Unfortunately - this doesn't stop the overall rat race nor the exploitation of others.