Russian soldier warming his hands over a currency fire - Grozny 1995. I'm not sure what's going on with the currency - Chechnya had their own?
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For those who are not very educated on the topic and/or not attentive - this is a Soviet money.That soldier warms his hands with them because this money has,officially,been withdrawn from circulation.
In Chechnya they actually tried to introduce their own independent currency. But firstly, there was no place to print it and no one, not even other unrecognized states, including anti-Russian ones, wanted to recognize it.Secondly, they depicted their tribal leaders, and Islamic tradition has discouraged the depiction of living creatures, especially human beings.And as funny as it may sound, the rapidly Islamizing population began to get upset.Thirdly,Chechen economy almost immediately began to be criminalized and was built on financial frauds and trade in illegal things;in such conditions, having its own currency simply lost its meaning
So the common people continued to use soviet money.The top brass and war lords used foreign currency, mainly dollars. Since there was no much of economy in Chechnya, simple exchange and barter also flourished.
In an unrelated photoset I found another pic relating to currency. Caption: "Destruction of bank notes - Grozny, 1995." I'm still not sure what was up with that.
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Soldiers are destroying old soviet rubles because Russia is "restoring law and order" and now modern rubles will be in circulation here. And because in Chechnya old soviet money was used for currency frauds (this is a longer topic,I dont think many will be interested about).In general, the production of counterfeit money, including foreign money, flourished and was put on stream in Chechnya. Therefore,from the point of view of Russian leadership, it was easier to destroy the entire existing money supply and bring a "safe" one.
