Russia greeted the new year with a new rouble - although it was all but impossible to find any re-denominated banknotes in Moscow's deserted city centre yesterday as the nation nursed its collective hangover.
In an attempt to restore confidence in the domestic currency, signal the death of high inflation and simplify financial transactions, the central bank lopped three zeros off the rouble from midnight on Wednesday and released new banknotes. To ease the transition, both the old and new roubles will circulate in parallel throughout 1998.
The few shops and restaurants open in Moscow yesterday were complying with the central bank's diktat that they must signal prices in both the old and new style.
The central bank has already distributed the new notes to commercial banks in Russia's 88 regions, excluding Chechnya, and will steadily release more as it withdraws the 6.5 billion old banknotes. But even automatic telling machines were still issuing old banknotes yesterday in spite of signalling transactions in the new denomination.
Suspicion of currency reform runs deep in Russia as central banks have periodically swindled the population out of their savings by tampering with the currency.
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