Compared with absolute poverty rates, relative poverty rates vary far less across the Russian Federation from 18% at maximum to 8% at minimum (Denisova, 2011). In 2003, Tatarstan and Samara had slightly above-average levels of relative poverty (15% and 14% respectively), while this was just below 10% in Moscow. By contrast, the absolute and relative poverty rates in Tatarstan as measured by the NOBUS survey, are relatively close.