Word: gosbank
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...overstated after decades of isolation from the marketplace that even Soviet citizens treat it as funny money. In the past year Soviet economists have openly acknowledged that the ruble's official rate of exchange with Western currencies was seriously out of whack. While the Soviet state bank, Gosbank, gave visiting foreigners only 0.65 rubles for every U.S. dollar, a thriving black market offered as much as 15 rubles. An internal study done for the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party reportedly estimated the ruble's true value to be as low as 20 to the dollar...
...Politburo, giving itself plenty of time to reconcile the currency with reality, voted a year ago to begin "steps to ensure the ruble's convertibility" by the year 2000. So Sovietologists in the West were caught by surprise last week when Gosbank announced that it would devalue the Soviet currency 90% for transactions that do not involve imports or exports. Foreign visitors will get much more bang for their buck: 6.26 rubles per dollar. But Soviet citizens traveling abroad will receive a paltry 16 cents per ruble instead of the official $1.60, which will seriously hamper their ability...