2006年VOA标准英语-Moscow One of the World's Most Expensive Cities

By Anya Ardayeva
Moscow
06 November 2006
 
watch Building Boom

Moscow is seeing an unprecedented¹ growth in construction. Residential² property prices have almost doubled in the past year and office space in the center of the city is now more expensive than in New York. And while much of the boom is due to oil revenues flooding the Russian marketplace, experts say the bubble won't burst anytime soon. The rising prices mean that fewer and fewer people are able to afford new housing.

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New apartment buildings are towering over existing buildings   
  

Modern Moscow resembles little of what the city looked like in Soviet³ times.

Cranes, swanky new buildings, skyscrapers⁴ -- the city is getting it all. The average price for a square meter in Moscow is now over $4,000, and in the city center, it sometimes exceeds $20,000.  These prices make the Russian capital among the most expensive property markets in the world.

Oleg Repchenko is head of IRN.RU, a real estate analysis firm.  He says unusually high demand is responsible for the rapid price growth. "Clearly it doesn't cost $4,000 per square meter to build these properties, in fact it's four to five times lower.  But these places sell for such high prices because of high demand and a lack of supply.  There's been a housing shortage in Moscow since Soviet times.

 
A small portion of the elegant Triumph Palace 
  
One of the most sophisticated buildings in the city, the 54-story Triumph Palace, was completed last year. Apartments here, as in many other buildings in Moscow, were on sale even before the foundation was laid five years ago. Since then, their value has increased five-fold.

And while most of the flats here have already sold, the luxury penthouse, worth over three and a half million dollars, is still on the market. 

But Ekaterina Kukanova, who works for one of Moscow's largest real estate companies, "Don Stroy", is confident there will be no lack of willing buyers.  "During the first part of the year, the growth in sales was so huge that by the middle of the year we started to worry that we will have nothing to sell."

New buildings are going up as fast as their prices for buyers  
  
But who is buying all that luxury? Experts say the oil boom, which fuels the economy, means more Russians have money to buy a Moscow apartment as an investment -- especially since other investment options in Russia are still both risky⁵ and scarce. These experts say that after the financial crisis of 1998 and some unsuccessful post-Soviet reforms, Russians do not trust anything that is not literally⁶ set in stone.

Oleg Repchenko tells us, "Trust in banks and securities is minimal⁷. And if you take a larger part of the population, for many of them buying an apartment is the only clear and reliable way to keep and invest their money."

But many in modern Moscow simply are not able to afford to buy an apartment.

Irina and Sergei Konyashkins live in an apartment belonging to Sergei's parents. Before their son was born, they looked into buying their own home, but gave up as prices rose almost daily. Sergei, who is a computer specialist, earns a decent salary, but believes the state must do something to help young families like theirs.

"Since the president keeps saying that Russians need to have more children, they have to do something about this,” says Sergei. “Otherwise, it's just words."

The Kremlin has put the issue of providing low-cost mortgages at the top of its political agenda to help families like the Konyashkins. Last year, Russian banks issued one billion dollars worth of home loans, up from zero in the year 2000. But paradoxically, analysts⁸ say the mortgages only increase the real estate prices in Moscow -- causing the fevered demand for property to become even hotter.

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

3 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

4 skyscrapers   

n.摩天大楼

参考例句：

• A lot of skyscrapers in Manhattan are rising up to the skies. 曼哈顿有许多摩天大楼耸入云霄。
• On all sides, skyscrapers rose like jagged teeth. 四周耸起的摩天大楼参差不齐。

5 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。

8 analysts   

分析家，化验员( analyst的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• City analysts forecast huge profits this year. 伦敦金融分析家预测今年的利润非常丰厚。
• I was impressed by the high calibre of the researchers and analysts. 研究人员和分析人员的高素质给我留下了深刻印象。