Latvian rubļis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The rubļis (plural rubļi) was the name of the currency of Latvia from 1919 to 1922 and from 1992 to 1993.

[edit] First Latvian Rubļis

After the proclamation of the Republic of Latvia in 1918, a large variety of different currencies were in circulation - ostrubles, ostmarks, German Papiermark, the so-called Tsar rubles, kopecks, the so-called Money of Duma and kerenkas, as well as promissory notes of several town municipalities.

On March 22, 1919, the Provisional Government of Latvia authorized the Minister of Finance to issue the first currency notes of the Republic of Latvia - Treasury notes. They were denominated in rubļis (ruble) and kapeiku (kopeck). The Latvian ruble was worth 1½ Russian rubles. In the period from April 1919 to September 1922, currency notes were issued in denominations of 5, 10, 25 and 50 kopecks and 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 rubles.

The first state currency notes were printed in 1919 by A.Niedra's government, which was considered pro-German and illegal, and was overthrown in the same year. The legal government of K.Ulmanis printed quite similar notes but with other signatures on them. This government recognized the previously printed banknotes as a legal payment means. The designer of these banknotes was Jūlijs Madernieks.

On August 3, 1922, the Cabinet of Ministers approved "Regulations on Money". The national currency of Latvia was named the lats (in similar manner as Lithuania's national currency, the litas, formed from first 3 characters of the state name) and the hundredth part of a lats was named the santīm. The lats was equal to 50 rubļi. The rubļis remained in circulation alongside the lats.

[edit] Second Latvian Ruble

Latvia regained independence in 1991 and in the first four months of the year 1992 Latvia was adversely affected by the Russian ruble inflation. In addition, the outgoing cash payments surpassed the incoming money amounts by 122 million rubles (5.9%) in February, but in April by 686 million rubles (29.2%), thus causing a very serious shortage of cash.

Since the money was emitted by Russia, the Bank of Latvia was unable to improve the cash circulation in the country. The situation fully depended on the possibilities to receive or buy cash and credit resources from the central bank of Russia. It was evident that a crisis could develop by the end of May, when the Bank of Latvia would not be able to execute even the most necessary payments.

To resolve the problem, on 4 May 1992 the Monetary Reform Commission [1] of the Republic of Latvia passed a resolution "On Introduction of the Latvian rubļis". From 7 May 1992, temporary currency Latvian rubļis (LVR) were put into circulation in Latvia as a legal tender parallel to the existing ruble notes of the FSU (SUR). It was declared equal in value with the Russian ruble. The nominal values of the Latvian rubles (widely known as repsīši, after then-governor of the Central Bank Einars Repše) were 1, 5, 20, 50, 200 and 500 (later also 2 and 10) rubļi. The national currency - the lats - was introduced in 1993, replacing rubļis at the ratio of 200:1.