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Prices and Income in Iran
For travellers, Iran is a fantastic country. People are utterly friendly (sometimes enoyingly so), it is very safe, and last but not least, it is very cheap! At the time we where there, november 2008 to march 2009, the prices for some randomly selected goods and services where the ones written below.
It may be that they were and are not always 100% correct as there is a geographical variation and a impredictable volatility in almost all prices, usually only in one direction - upwards. This is not valid for the salaries, these remain low.
To keep everybody from thinking that this is paradise, we have also added some salaries below. These numbers might differ from what other people are told or might hear, but it is what we have got from - in our eyes trustworthy - sources.

innercity shared taxi, 10 minutes/5kms: 200 Tuman = 20 USD-Cents
10 hours bus ride: 6000 Tuman = 6 USD
6 large leaves of bread: 100 Tuman = 10 USD-Cents
1 'stone-bread': 75 Tuman = 7.5 USD-Cents
1 city bus ride in Tehran: 20 Tuman = 2 USD-Cents
1 litre of benzin (subsidised for cars built in Iran): 100 Tuman = 10 USD-Cents
1 litre of benzin (not subsidised, usually imported cars): 400 Tuman = 40 USD-Cents
1 litre of benzin/diesel (for a licensed truck driver): 17 Tuman = 2 USD-Cents
1 copy of Windows XP in a computer shop: 2'000 Tuman = 2 USD
1 nosejob (surgical nose correction), from 400'000 Tuman upwards = 400 USD
1 eyejob (surgical eyesight correction), around 600'000 - 1 Mio Tuman = 600-1'000 USD
1 year health insurance for a 3 kids family: 80'000 Tuman = 80 USD
allowance for a gender-mixed wedding party (to be paid to the chief of police in duty at the time, no receipt will be given ;-)): from 2 Mio Tuman = 2'000 USD
3.5 room apartement in a city like Rasht, 'european standard': 110 Mio Tuman = 110'000 USD

minimalwage (per month): 220'000Tuman = 220 USD
income of a construction worker (per day); 12'000 Tuman = 12 USD
salary (per month) of a bank-cleark: 400'000 Tuman = 400 USD
income (per month) of an average small business owner (Electronics Retailer): around 1'200'000 Tuman = 1'200 USD
pension (per month) of a teacher: 600'000 Tuman = 600 USD
poverty threshold (per month): 600'000 Tuman = 600 USD
 
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