It seems like the National Bank of Ukraine, guided by Arseniy Yatseniuk’s self-styled government to the radiant future, has come to a decision to do away with the country's national currency hryvna. This is according to a private letter from an employee with Giesecke & Devrient, a Munich-based banknote printing firm, that has recently been leaked to the Web.
An interesting letter appeared in the Internet the other day, in which an employee of the German company Giesecke & Devrient warns their Ukrainian relative about the impending collapse of the Ukrainian financial system.
Translation:
"Dear Emma,
Mother and I are very worried about you. Is your family all right? How are the kids? Why are you staying away from Skype contacts? Here the media are saying awful things about the Ukraine, we don’t understand anything and the future is vague.
We know that you have a business there but please, for our sake, try to persuade your husband to come and stay with us in Munich at least for a short time. We can send the boys to a local school, fortunately Martha is still teaching, so we won’t have to worry about you. Let us know as soon as you make up your minds. Please, don’t play a waiting game.
In any case, be sure to get rid of hryvnas in cash and convert your bank accounts to euros because it looks like Yatseniuk will soon make the hryvna a useless slip of paper. We had an urgent commission at Giesecke & Devrient from the National Bank of Ukraine to develop a design for a new currency unit. It will have the same name, hryvna, but an absolutely different standard. Actually, it will imitate the euro. We are working at full speed because they want sketches of the notes in a week. I’m afraid that you’ll soon be able to send your current money to a museum.
Your Albert"
Incidentally, Giesecke & Devrient is a rather well-known company developing banknote designs and putting them into production.
This was not the end of it, of course. The woman’s husband appealed to Verkhovna Rada for explanations. Moreover, in addition to his e-mail letter the man posted sketches of new banknotes that his German relative had sent to his wife.
Verkhovna Rada traditionally ignored the awkward question. But the website of the Lvov Bank posted a warning that due to the changing monetary policy of the National Bank of Ukraine banknotes of the Ukraine’s national currency of old design will not be accepted by bank departments starting with 1 June 2014. Some time later the notification was deleted but a bad aftertaste remained.
Summing up this information, one can claim offhand that the latest national revolution has successfully ended with a banal robbery of ordinary people and huge wealth accumulation by oligarchs. We have a feeling that the hryvna will be disposed of quietly. At least, there is not a word about it in the media, so it would be reasonable to suppose that at a certain moment people will face the need to exchange their hryvnas for the new currency at an extortionate rate. In this way the new government will try to settle the internal debt. We know at whose expense.
