I'm another person who's been there. I've lived for three years in the Bay Area and travelled to a few other US cities (LA, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, Chicago

I'm another person who's been there. I've lived for three years in the Bay Area and travelled to a few other US cities (LA, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, Chicago) and surprisingly, even the smaller Russian cities I've visited mostly blow the US out of the water in terms of public transit and are a lot better in other aspects too. The city I stay in the most, where my wife is from, has a population of 110k, is absolutely not wealthy and is pretty far away from Moscow and St. Petersburg. In terms of local transit, there are frequent and affordable minibuses (Marshrutki) with stops all over the place. They cost (in this city) 17 rubles, which at the moment is around a quarter US. My mother in law is on a teacher's salary which is quite low and has no issues with affordability. I think the longest I waited for one was ~5 minutes. For regional transit, there are trains to and from the nearest airport and larger city, as well as the capital. From there you can take trains to Moscow and from there most of the rest of Russia. The trains are also fairly affordable, particularly if you go for the lowest class (which is admittedly something most Americans wouldn't be comfortable with). There are of course also planes.