…the Soviet State Bank was replaced by fifteen republic Central Banks, but the currency - the rouble - was retained, under the mistaken view among some Russian officials and the IMF that a single ‘rouble zone’ would promote economic reintegration. Only Russia’s Central Bank, having inherited all Soviet printing presses, could issue paper roubles, but crazily, all republic banks could issue credits in roubles. ‘In effect,’ wrote one journalist for Rolling Stone, ‘Russia had fourteen ex-wives, each with a duplicate of the Kremlin Visa card’.
a passage describing the monetary insanity taking place in the immediate post-soviet era, from armageddon averted by stephen kotkin, which i’m currently reading.
