[ehllo]

To be honest i dont live there, i just quickchecked some sites and 20k$ seems very good for russia:

http://www.gks.ru/wps/wcm/connect/rosstat_main/rosstat/en/fi...

http://rbth.com/business/2016/05/20/the-average-salary-in-ru...

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/russia/wages

I think the best option for you/your friend is to get contract work outside of russia.