Anton Trafimovich • 10 Reasons to Visit Belarus
EVERYONE IS A MILLIONAIRE HERE
Belarus is the only country in Europe that doesn’t have coins in circulation. The speed of inflation and
devaluation is so high that prices increase by ten times every couple of years. In 1999, when the 5 million
banknote was the largest in circulation, we cut three zeros off our notes. Today the smallest banknote is
100 rubles and the average salary is 5-6 million rubles, which equates to about €300 euros. For 1 million
rubles you can buy two pairs of jeans or 50 kg of apples. Nothing else. One month rent for a two-bedroom
apartment in Minsk costs over 6 million rubles while a new VW golf costs over 300 million rubles. So if you
exchange 100 euro note at the bank, the cashier will give you over 1.5 million rubles. So make sure you take
a photo of prices when you are in Belarus.
Afterward, you can state that you’ve
been to the most “expensive” country
in the world where one beer costs
12,000 rubles!
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March 2015
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