Penza, 13 April 2015. PenzaNews. The town of Sursk of the Penza region has been named one of the cities of Russia with the poorest citizens.

According to the results of the research held by RBC using the data of the Russian Statistics Service, the average salary of a Sursk citizen is only 1.6 times higher than the minimum living wage, while the ratio in the Penza region overall has been calculated at 3.4.

The research points out that the situation in Crimea is currently the worst, with the average salary reaching only 2.4 times the minimum living wage in 2013. The situation has slightly improved by January 2015, up to 2.6, but still with the worst result in the country.

The second-to-worst place in the rating is held by the Ivanovo and Smolensk regions with 2.7. The industries in the regions were hit hard, shrinking by 75% and 47%, respectively, over the last 25 years.

The leading cities based on the average salary to minimum living wage ratio in 2013-2014 are the oil towns of the Yamalo-Nenetsky (5.6) and Khanty-Mansiyskiy (5.2) autonomous regions, as well as large cities with population over 500,000 citizens (4.3).