Funny money
 

This is a picture of USD 317.75 in Uzbek currency (UZS 350,000). The exchange rate is fixed by presidential decree.
Sample prices for western manufactured electrical goods are: washing machine - one to two million; hoover 600,000 to 120,000; kettle 200,000 and up.
Average middle class wage in Tashkent is about USD 400/month. Salaries (and prices, though western made goods are probably only available in Tashkent) in the regions will be much less, maybe by as much as 50%. A sim card with 10MB of data and 100 minutes of local calls cost just over USD 8. Adding 5MB cost another 10 cents.
Local biscuits (cookies), sold loose by weight cost from 6,000 to 120,000 per kilo. A 100g bar of Russian (so still imported goods) chocolate is 5,000.
Average taxi fare around town seems to be 5,000.
I changed too much money and will change it back later today, apart from what I spend on overpriced souvenirs in the hotel shop.

Sent by thought transference

wow. any chance of getting a pic of the front of a bill?

I have 100,000 Mark and 500,000 Mark notes from 1923 Germany that were passed down to me. The hyperinflation was happening so quickly there wasn't a chance to revalue the currency which eventually had single notes of 1 Trillion Mark. It took a wheelbarrow full of lower denomination notes to buy a loaf of bread. The silver lining was that people never ran out of toilet paper.

I've seen film of that wheelbarrow thing. On my last visit to Uzbekistan I saw a South African guy pay his hotel bill with local currency - at least four carrier bags full!
The pic is a stack of 1,000 sum notes. There are higher denomination notes in circulation but only the very rich get to use them!
Link to currency images here for Sarge. I've never seen the coins (not this visit, not the last, 15 months ago). I was given a 200 and a 500 note this morning (and a sweetie/candy - this is common practice when the coins have disappeared from circulation, usually because the metal is worth more than the denomination. Sweets, chewing gum, matches can all be supplied by the shop as "small change" for a transaction) as change when I bought some biscuits. I gave the notes to a beggar as I doubt the currency exchange will take them from me.
Currency exchanges, hotels and shops which handle larger transactions all have automated bill counters, and the rattle as they count out the hundreds of thousands is a characteristic sound in any hotel lobby.

Limey - I think you must be an international spy hopping the globe on clandestine missions. Do you carry a spy kit in your tuba?

Sounds as tho it's time for "devaluation"

Didn't one of the South American countries do that back in the 70's or 80's.
I think they just declared their currency was only worth 1/100 face value
or something like that, and went on about their business using 1 bill instead of 100 bills.
Maybe it was the other way around, where 1 bill was worth 100 times more.

I've got no pics, so maybe it never happened.

I've got a 100 trillion Zimbabwean Dollar note somewhere round here. It cost £1.60 on eBay and that was overpriced.

I'm saying nothing but I found this ad in the sidebar of my FB page ...

More importantly, do you carry a tuba in your spy kit?

I always picture limey with her tuba. I think she carries one everywhere. It would make a great purse and if you are waiting for a bus, you can always play a round of "Tea for Two"

I always keep an inflatable one by me for emergencies.

Sent by thought transference

you should check it for leaks; that may be the reason you have to keep blowing more air into it.

*blinks*

As good a reason as any I guess...