It is cheap for a foreigner to live in Ukraine. This has been for the case for the eight years I have lived here. Exactly how cheap it depends on circumstances such as the financial crisis of 2008 and the Russian invasion of 2014. Before the recent invasion Ukraine was at the bottom of the big Mac index. That fabled sandwich cost less in Ukraine than any place in the world. And then… the value of the hryvnya (Ukrainian currency) fell as much as threefold under Russian pressure. It became unbelievably cheap.

People without much money get along well here. Just to name a handful of representative costs, today I rode the metro and a bus. The trips cost 16? apiece. I bought some potatoes – 10? a pound. I paid the babysitter – $20 a week. The price of electricity has skyrocketed. Last month I paid $70 to heat our American-sized house. I traveled to Kharkiv, halfway across the country. A first class train ticket cost $40. The five-star hotel cost $50 a night.

Communications was a major cost a decade ago, but the prices have fallen to negligible. I use prepaid cellular phone service the cost me about $10 a month on the average. I have two Internet services, fiber optic and WiMAX. Neither one is 100 percent reliable, given that I live in a new remote neighborhood, but between the two I always have a connection. They cost about eight dollars a month apiece. I rent a PO Box for something like $10 a year. Maintaining a United States presence costs $30 per month: $20 for a mail service and $10 for a Skype number.

The mere simplicity of life here eliminates a lot of costs. I could buy fire insurance if I wanted, but I built a fireproof house and I don’t have a mortgage company demanding that I carry insurance. As I mentioned above, I don’t have the expenses associated with car ownership: maintenance, insurance, car washes and traffic tickets. A rental car costs $60 a day if I really need one. However, for about the same price I can bargain with a taxi driver to take me around all day.

A foreigner has to depend on bank services to get money from the west. The cost is ranges from half a percent for wire transfers to my local bank to three percent or more for transactions using a foreign credit card. Since the war with Russia, there are some constraints on withdrawals, but nothing really inconvenient.

Certain things do remain expensive. Imports carry prices that compare with Europe. A car, an iPhone, or a television will cost pretty much what it does anyplace else. Gasoline is a little bit cheaper than in Europe, but more expensive than in the United States. We get along fine without a car. It costs four dollars to go down town by taxi; they are fast and reliable.

Capital is scarce here and interest rates are high. This means that the costs of apartments and land are reasonable, but if you have to borrow money on the local economy to buy them the payments are stiff. It favors people who have acquired assets overseas. Anybody who is curious can find classified advertisements offering apartments for sale in Kyiv. A five room apartment might cost $100,000. Detached houses are more expensive, but not out of question. In my neighborhood, three miles as the crow flies from the presidential palace, you can buy something nice for $300,000.

The Ukrainian government gets most of its revenue from customs duties, a value added tax, individual and corporate income taxes. The rates are somewhat less than the United States and Western Europe, when you add it all together. Property taxes are nominal.

Ukraine is an example of what happens when socialism fails. The major promises remain in place: universal healthcare and pension benefits starting at an early age. However, the money to back up promises hasn’t been there since the fall of the Soviet Union. Pensions are minimal, and the healthcare system is a patchwork of what government provides for free and people can afford on the side. Ukraine does not suffer the political arguments that one hears in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and other countries with socialized medicine. They don’t argue in principle, they simply get by with what is in place.

The implications are favorable for foreigners. We receive our pensions from the West, which are extraordinarily generous by local standards. We can simply pay for healthcare as we need it, or buy health insurance with costs commensurate with the market for medical services. An American has to pay for insurance out-of-pocket – they have never heard of Medicare. It works better for Europeans. There are reciprocal arrangements among the national health systems throughout Europe.

Over the past two months the hryvnya has appreciated, indicating that the market thanks Putin is mostly just bluffing. He is having trouble enough digesting the true Russian speakers in Eastern Ukraine. It is hard to believe he has an appetite to absorb those of us who, Russian-speaking or not, have no desire whatsoever to be part of Russia. Even in a worst-case scenario, I am confident that my family would be able to get out before there was any real trouble. The United States consulate here in Kiev is the most helpful I have encountered in 50 years of travel.

I would far rather be facing the uncertainties here in Kiev than the long hot summer in the United States that has recently been initiated by the riots in Baltimore. I carried a gun during the Watts riots and lived in Washington DC through its riots. Even if Russia initiates violence here, it will not be random, and we can avoid it if we are simply prudent.

Most people are like frogs and boiling water. We are comfortable with the dangers we know, but very apprehensive of new situations. Ukraine definitely represented a new situation for an American or Western European. After a bit of analysis, however, it should be clear that the risks are low, even lower than in the West, and the benefits accruing from the very low cost of living are extremely attractive. There are many other virtues to be extolled: the cuisine, the grace and femininity of the women, and the high level of social capital resulting from the homogeneity of the people. But those are topics for future articles. The financial case alone should be a compelling reason to consider relocating to Ukraine.