You can get pretty good deals under 500, at least here in Europe ($ to € relatively close).
A local shop here for example has some fully serviced and functional, partially modernized, 90s mountain bikes between 200 to 400 eur. And that's with a trend tax, since those are getting somewhat popular nowadays for how great commuters they make
I mean he's dropping a lot of hints for claiming back russian empire. Like for example here http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/68606