Ukrainian land is not just black soil and steppes, it is a battlefield where Russia has been robbing us to the bone for centuries. The rubles rotting in savings books are not just paper, but stolen lives that Moscow cynically wrote off to the archives. From imperial times to Soviet chaos, from bread stamps to the birth of the hryvnia, this is a story of how we were robbed but not broken. Hold on, it’s going to be explosive: with numbers, archives, and such a drive that your adrenaline will go through the roof!
Rubles on books: a robbery recorded in numbers
Even during the tsarist era, Russia stifled any attempts by Ukrainians to breathe freely, and with the advent of the Bolsheviks, a real financial apocalypse began. The archives of the USSR State Bank (available at the Central State Archive of Ukraine, fonds P-1) are screaming with facts: in the 1930s, 70% of coal, 60% of grain, and half of steel were exported from the Ukrainian SSR, and in return, rubles were thrown in – empty as the Kremlin’s promises. In 1947, Stalin carried out a robbery reform: old rubles were exchanged for new ones at a rate of 10:1, and cash was simply confiscated. A report by the Central State Archive of Veterans’ Affairs (fond P-2, description 7) records that Ukrainians lost 1.2 billion rubles, trillions in today’s hryvnias, which settled in Moscow’s vaults.
But cynicism peaked in 1991, when the USSR collapsed. Ukrainians had 131.9 billion rubles in their savings accounts – $70 billion at the exchange rate of the time, according to the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine. Russia, having declared itself the heir to the Soviet Union, promised to return this money, but threw it all away. The rubles lay on the books like dead weight, and people were left empty-handed. In 1996, Ukraine began making payments of 100-150 hryvnias, but these were tears compared to what Moscow had stolen.
Hryvnia: the return of a legend
The hryvnia is not just a currency, it is our battle cry. In Kyivan Rus, it weighed 204 grams of silver and was a symbol of strength. In 1918, the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, led by Hrushevsky, resurrected it: the first banknotes from Narbut were decorated with ornaments and princely faces. The NBU archives (fond 1, file 12) contain the letter: “We are printing 1 million hryvnias in Germany!” But the Bolsheviks came in like wolves and in 1919 took the cliché to Moscow, another plunder for Russia’s treasury.
The modern hryvnia burst onto the scene on 2 September 1996. Kuchma’s Decree No. 762/96 and the brilliant Viktor Yushchenko at the NBU did the impossible: in two weeks, 3.1 trillion kuponokarbovanets were exchanged for 3.1 billion hryvnias – a rate of 100,000:1! The hyperinflation of 1993 (10,256% in one year) almost killed the country, but the hryvnia became the bullet in the heart of the chaos. It was printed in Canada so that Russia would not breathe down our necks, and the princes and hetmans on the banknotes reminded us that we had not surrendered!
Vouchers: survival in a “no rules” style
When the USSR collapsed, Russia took everything it could, leaving Ukraine in economic hell. Rubles depreciated, coupon notes fell like leaves in autumn: in 1992 bread cost 500 coupons, in 1993 – 50,000! The archives of the Cabinet of Ministers (fond R-2, file 145) paint a picture: 80% food shortages, empty shelves. That’s when coupons were born – pieces of paper that weighed more than gold: 1 kg of sugar, 200 g of butter, half a kilo of flour per month.
In the queues for the ‘blue chicken’, people fought like in a ring, and speculators sold coupons like drugs. In Kharkiv (from the archives of Ukrinform), people recall that they had to queue for a milk coupon from 4am, but got diluted drink. Until 1996, when the hryvnia pulled the country out of the hole, coupons were our “post-apocalyptic dollar” – a symbol of survival when Russia left us to our own devices.
Russia is stealing non-stop
The looting did not end in 1991. In 2014, wagons of coal and metal were taken from Donbas, and millions in cash were stolen from Crimean banks. In 2022, the SBU caught the occupiers in the Kherson region: UAH 200 million was exchanged for rubles through black schemes to buy missiles. Rubles on books became rubles on tanks – Russia is not changing the rules of the game.
A blockbuster finale
The hryvnia is not just money, it is our fist raised against the robbers. The rubles on the books represent the trillions stolen, the coupons are our scars, but we survived. Russia thought it had buried us under pieces of paper, but we rose like a phoenix from the ashes, holding the hryvnia like a sword. This is not a conclusion – it is a cry: we are not giving up, and our treasures are not theirs! Let them know: Ukraine is taking back what is ours, and this is just the beginning!
Author : Katerina Bogdanenko
