Moscow No Longer among World’s 100 Most Expensive Cities for Foreigners

The depreciating ruble, the drop in oil prices and continuing anti-Russian sanctions have caused Moscow to drop out of the list of top-100 most expensive cities in the world for foreigners, says the new Cost of Living Index report by international consultancy ECA International.

According to the report, cited by Channel 5, Moscow dropped 66 places to hit 120, while St. Petersburg exhibited a similar trend, falling by 31 spots and landing in 172th place.

A weaker euro resulted in EU cities becoming less expensive for foreigners working there – overall, Europe only takes up 19% of the rating, while the United States demonstrated the opposite tendency. A stronger dollar saw 25 U.S. cities being ranked in the top-100, while only ten made it into the list last year.

This time, Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was placed first in the list of cities most expensive for foreigners to live in, managing to surpass two Swiss cities, namely Zurich (2) and Geneva (3) that are traditionally ranked very high. They are followed by Hong Kong in the 4rd place, Basel (Switzerland) comes 5th, Bern (Switzerland) placed 6th, Tokyo (Japan) – 7, Seoul (South Korea) – 8, Tel Aviv (Israel) – 9, while Shanghai (China) closes out the top-10.

The Venezuelan capital, Caracas, suffered the most impressive drop, coming from being the leader of the rating last year to falling to the 238th spot because of the inflation that reaches $1.3 million on a year-on-year basis.

Overall, the research compared market baskets of 482 cities all over the world. Tehran occupies the very last place, because of U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran.