This stunned me today. As of 2013 the average monthly per capita income in Bishkek is 15,300 soms ($255). If you average in the rest of the country, the average monthly income is 12,000 soms ($200). When I go to the bank machine here, I usually withdraw 10,000 soms at a time, which is 5/6 of the average national monthly income. I am a member of the lower middle class (depending on one's economic model). Frankly, I am rich by most world standards.

Actually, I do find myself doubting the statistics for Bishkek, and I rather wonder if a huge part of the economy is not tracked. But the low salaries do seem to be confirmed by other sites. Consider for instance this bit from www.averagesalarysurvey.com; it sites yearly salaries, not monthly:

You will note some fairly high salaries. This particular website is exclusively English language, which implies to me that it will probably have quite a few non-Kyrgyz natives using it, so probably a chunk of the higher salaries are foreigners working in KG and receiving significantly higher salaries than the local KG people would.