Armenian policy towards redeeming the peoples’ savings that they had in the former USSR

Abstract

On 0 hour, 23rd of January 1991 millions of people in the USSR who made their fortune through hardship or otherwise “unearned work” likewise at a moment lost everything. The president of the USSR ordered to change the banknotes of 1961 type to a new 1991 type to be determined by the cabinet of Ministers who in its turn gave to the special category of people three days from 23 to 25 of January to exchange the banknotes limited to 1000 SUR thus interfering with their rights. Who could exchange that win but those who had savings in the bank accounts were not and suffered the most. At that time inflation hit 2600% diminishing purchasing power of SUR. Shortly Soviet Union broke up and then the dissolved countries that formed Commonwealth of Independent States (hereinafter also referred to as CIS) one after another abandoned SUR and introduced their own state currencies. To mitigate the situation independent states together and separately took measures to compensate the depositors’ losses with no much success so far. So many unresolved issues e.g. what should be compensated, who will compensate, how much and to whom remain.