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Ha! This brings memories. Growing up in Bulgaria, I was 6 years old in 1982, and I was begging my grandma's coworkers (he was their manager) to give me a dollar

by malkia 4y ago

Ha! This brings memories. Growing up in Bulgaria, I was 6 years old in 1982, and I was begging my grandma's coworkers (he was their manager) to give me a dollar. Some of their husbands would drive trucks (T.I.R.) and would get ahold of foreign currency, but it was impossible to do so. In fact, the government has set up special shops called CORECOM - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corecom where you can "exchange" your "dirty" foreign currency for stuff not possible to buy anywhere else. I wanted my $1 dollar to get a Kinder Surprise Egg (that, and empty cans out of coca cola, or pez were great for a kid to have). Then regime fell, and in early 1990's all "corecom" eggs were now for sale everywhere... They were no longer that valueable :) (From the wikipedia article, it looks like The Czechoslovakian's version was called Tuzex - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuzex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuzex - lol - what names, someone should make a game with these names)

v-erne 4y ago
Poland also used to have this kind of shops - they were called Pewex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex And they allowed purchases mostly in dollars. This shops were the only place where You could get high tech equipment that was produced by "rotten" west.
- gumby 4y ago
  China had a more complex system into the mid 90s: They had special currency exchangeable for foreign currencies but de facto it was only for foreigners (who else had foreign exchange?). There were places that only took these Foreign Exchange Certificates: hotels for foreigners, tourist traps, some speciality shops etc. They were denominated in Yuan but these places that took them of course charged foreigner prices too -- like a pack of cigarettes cost about much more than you would pay in the street. Some local people were quite eager to get FECs and would exchange them at better than 1:1 so they could buy something normally unavailable What people really liked was if you bought something with them (like cigarettes) -- you'd get change in regular renminbi. There were other good techniques for soaking the foreigners. Two I particularly liked: Egypt used to require that visitors spend at least $75 (maybe $225 today) worth of Egyptian Lire per day. You had to buy that much local currency at the airport to enter the country (based on how many days you planned to visit). But the best part was when you left you had to show receipts for the things you'd paid for and if they didn't add up to enough they'd tax you the difference before you could leave! The sneakiest system was in Sri Lanka: the currency was not convertible so you could only buy rupees when you were physically there. Then when you left of course you had some cash left, but when departing flights left the banks were closed. There was a huge transparent globe collecting money for a children's charity. Naturally it was full of rupees (and a tiny amount of foreign money). I refused to do this and later sold my walletload of Sri Lankan Rupees to a coin collector shop in Singapore for some terrible exchange rate. Just out of principle.

by malkia 4y ago

v-erne 4y ago

Poland also used to have this kind of shops - they were called Pewex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex And they allowed purchases mostly in dollars. This shops were the only place where You could get high tech equipment that was produced by "rotten" west.

gumby 4y ago
China had a more complex system into the mid 90s: They had special currency exchangeable for foreign currencies but de facto it was only for foreigners (who else had foreign exchange?). There were places that only took these Foreign Exchange Certificates: hotels for foreigners, tourist traps, some speciality shops etc. They were denominated in Yuan but these places that took them of course charged foreigner prices too -- like a pack of cigarettes cost about much more than you would pay in the street. Some local people were quite eager to get FECs and would exchange them at better than 1:1 so they could buy something normally unavailable What people really liked was if you bought something with them (like cigarettes) -- you'd get change in regular renminbi. There were other good techniques for soaking the foreigners. Two I particularly liked: Egypt used to require that visitors spend at least $75 (maybe $225 today) worth of Egyptian Lire per day. You had to buy that much local currency at the airport to enter the country (based on how many days you planned to visit). But the best part was when you left you had to show receipts for the things you'd paid for and if they didn't add up to enough they'd tax you the difference before you could leave! The sneakiest system was in Sri Lanka: the currency was not convertible so you could only buy rupees when you were physically there. Then when you left of course you had some cash left, but when departing flights left the banks were closed. There was a huge transparent globe collecting money for a children's charity. Naturally it was full of rupees (and a tiny amount of foreign money). I refused to do this and later sold my walletload of Sri Lankan Rupees to a coin collector shop in Singapore for some terrible exchange rate. Just out of principle.