How could one judge whether a city or country's economy had truly made great strides? It was actually very simple.
Statistics might deceive people, but ordinary citizens' work and lives clearly did not lie.
Compared with Moscow in 2001, Moscow in 2007 had undergone enormous, visible changes.
First came the infrastructure. There were far more brand-new, smooth, spacious roads. Over the past few years alone, three new metro lines and dozens of metro stations had been built!
Moscow's metro system had already ranked among the best of all major cities worldwide. Now, it firmly held the number one position in the world.
Whether in total track length, number of metro lines, or number of stations, it had surpassed every competitor and pulled far ahead!
Besides, if one drove around Moscow, one would find countless high-rises shooting up from the ground, along with many fenced-off construction sites bustling with activity.
None of this had existed back in 2001!
Aside from those physical improvements, Moscow residents' average incomes had also risen considerably.
When Wang Ye had attended preparatory school, several of his teachers, including Angelina, had taken home only around three hundred US dollars a month. Their lives had been extremely tight.
One preparatory teacher named Alexander even carried a large sports bag to the metro station after work every day to set up a stall selling slippers, just to support his family...
Even elites at the level of university professors earned only about five hundred US dollars a month.
With that kind of income, living in an international metropolis like Moscow, the quality of life was easy to imagine.
But by 2007, the latest survey data showed that Moscow residents' average monthly salary had reached around eight hundred US dollars.
The incomes of elite professionals such as university professors had tripled,