Recently Russian authorities have remembered of all those people who lost their money kept in the Savings Bank of the RF in the year of 1991. That is the time when state-controlled prices were released according to the new economical policy of the country. The cost of products rose enormously within several months, the ruble as a national currency decreased in value with the same speed. People wanted to withdraw their deposits made earlier, but the Savings Bank was prohibited to pay out funds, while money got cheaper with every day passed. The situation was aggravated by the fact that lots of Soviet citizens submitted to the influence of the slogan “keep your money in the Savings Bank” and deposited substantial sums to the only bank functioning in the Soviet Union then.

The decree signed by the Russian Prime Minister says all the citizens, who set up accounts in the Savings Bank before June 20, 1991, must be paid compensations to. The Russians under the age of 54 and disabled persons of the second group are due to receive only the advance compensation equal to the nominal value of deposits. This point equates modern Russians rubles to the Soviet ones of that period, but the payment size is limited by 1000 rubles. Moreover, this funny sum is not so easy to get if the deposit was withdrawn before 1996. In this case the size of compensation is smaller: 90% - if the deposit was closed in 1995, or 60% - in 1992.

However, there are more lucky people allowed to receive sums exceeding 1000 rubles. If you are 60 or older, you live in Russia and lost e.g. 40 thousand Soviet rubles due to incredible inflation, you will get them all provided with additional compensation sum of 5 thousand rubles (the final compensation depends on the year the deposit was withdrawn). The same pattern has been worked out for severely disabled persons, parents and custodians of disabled children and parents, whose sons were killed in the army in peacetime. In case the depositor is dead at the moment, the compensation will be given to his/her wife, husband or children.

According to the decree, the Savings Bank is to start the paying off procedure in May, but people born in 1943-1947 will get their compensations only in October.

The question is if the new decree is just to all former Soviet citizens. The answer is simple. People, who lived the Soviet Union, remember the time when they could buy a new car for 5 thousand rubles; it was a Soviet car not able to stand comparison with any foreign ones, but it was an Automobile. Today 5 thousand rubles are equal to 190 US dollars, and one thousand rubles promised to people under the age of 54 makes about 39 US dollars, isn’t it funny? 20 years ago a common Russian family didn’t have to work for a year, if they had 5 thousand rubles, but now one person could hardly make the both ends meet having this sum for a month. Before the law was signed, people could think that one day the government would compensate the lost money corrected to inflation, but now we see that hope was in vain.

Sources:

    rokf.ru
    www.ilovemoney.ru
    www.lenta.ru

Pictures:

    www.rbc.ru
    www.gazeta.ru
    www.money.dmd.ru

Olga Pletneva