Last time, I talked about the purchasing power of a dollar in Kyrgyzstan versus in America. Rather, I complained about how much money my friends spend (sorry guys, I’m just jealous of your boogie). This week, let’s dive in a little deeper on the history of Kyrgyz money, what it looks like, and what it gets you!
Kyrgyzstan uses a currency called the som, not to be confused with the Uzbek som or the Tajik Somoni. “Som” was actually the local language name for the Soviet ruble during the USSR, and derives from a Turkic word meaning “pure,” implying “pure gold.” The Kyrgyz som was launched in May 1993 with a pegged exchange rate from the old ruble, and was initially worth 200 rubles per som. According to official Soviet exchange rates, this meant that 1 som was worth over USD $200, which was obviously not a true market value. The Uzbek som was initially valued at 7 som per dollar, so from what best I’ve been able to figure out, the Kyrgyz som was probably similarly valued. The most recent historical data I can find shows that it floated between 30 and 40 som per dollar from about 2007-2012, and since then has floated up to the recent high of 76 som per dollar, where it was briefly pegged before dropping to its current value around 68 som per dollar.
Starting out so strong, the currency initially needed tyiyn, which are its “cents,” and until 2008, all currency was paper notes. That meant that there were paper notes for 1, 10, and 50 tyiyn, and 1, 5, and 20 som. In 1994, they added notes for 10, 50, and 100 som, and in 1997, 200, 500, and 1000 som notes were introduced. Most of these old notes are now out of circulation, but every so often I’ll get an old 1000 som note from this series out of an exchange booth.
As the currency lost its value, they decided to replace the small bills (recall that they still had bills in use for 1 tyiyn!) with coins, so coins were struck for 10 and 50 tyiyn (the 1 tyiyn coin exists but was never put into circulation) and 1, 3, 5, and 10 som. Bills in the new series begin at 20 som, and a new denomination was added at 5000 som (that you basically can’t use outside of banks – nobody is willing to break them).
As you can see, these notes are beautiful and colorful, and their size increases with larger denominations, both helpful accessibility features that we don’t have on US currency.
Nobody uses tyiyn anymore, and I haven’t ever seen the actual tyiyn coins. The som coins might seem to be in strange denominations at first glance, but the choice to include a 3-som coin is actually very clever, as it means that you never need more than 2 or 3 coins to make any denomination of change under 10 som. I mentioned a similar phenomenon in Tajikistan, where the 3 Somoni bill plays a useful role in public transportation, since shared taxis are priced at 3 Somonis. As the US moves away from cash, this is less of an issue for us, but living here in this cash economy, it’s very valuable.
What can you get with each bill? Well, a 20 som bill will get you two bus rides. It will also buy you a potato-filled samsa (like a samosa), or one or two piroshkis. A 50 som bill is enough for a lunch of 3 samsas and a pot of tea at some ashkanas. 50 will also get you an Americano at the cheapest place in Osh. 100 som will buy you a variety of lunch options, including a Club Sandwich (more on this to come in a later post), oromo, Osh Samsa, manty, and a whole bunch of other local lunch options. 100 will also buy you between 1 and 2 beers at a store, depending on what kind.
Climbing higher, 200 som will get you a cheese plate at the new wine bar in Bishkek. 200 som will also cover burritos and a coffee at a restaurant here in Osh. 250 som is the entry price for pizza. 500 som will get you a nice dinner and drink somewhere, or a whole pizza and beer to yourself. 1000 som will get you a night in an apartment. 1000 som is also how much my monthly phone bill is. A plane ticket to Bishkek from Osh is between 1500 and 3000 som each way. And 5000 som? I haven’t even thought about it because that’s a lot more money than I can drop at any one time!
As you can see, a buck goes very far here, even if the money’s denomination is very different from the United States. To us, with our low income, we sometimes even pretend that the prices are, in fact, in dollars, to help us make the choice to not spend “300 dollars” on a pizza. But sometimes, you just really really really want to pig out. It’s worth it usually.
Images in this post from Wikipedia.