Kopiyok and Hryvnia

You need a big wallet for your spending money in Donetsk.  The coins are called Kopiyok (pronounced Kopeck).  The bills (Hryvnia, pronounced grivna) are different sizes for different denominations and it takes a lot of them to make purchases.  Today a  5 hryven' note is worth about sixty three cents and 500 hryven' would be, in US dollars, about $62.50.

Our first major purchase was a pair of boots. 

This is good, I told myself.  The boots are necessary and these will keep my feet warm.  They have lovely fur lining, they are sturdy and comfortable and they are good quality.  But the sight of all of those big bills moving from our wallet into the hands of the shopkeeper made me swallow hard.  I mean, it's just a pair of boots . . . I do have shoes, after all . . . and spring will be here before we know it . . . . right?



Sister Fry was quick to assure me that Two Hundred Seventy Three hryven' for quality boots is an acceptable price.  In US dollars that would be about $34.00.  OK.  I can handle that!

 

Having been exposed to the intricacies of the Ukranian monetary system, we now felt ready to venture out on our own.

 

We decided to go incognito just in case we made any big foo-pah.  Dressed in our P-day clothes we headed out for the AMCTOR.  (It is kind of like a Ukrainian Wal-mart.)  The bus is the way to go.  It is a readily available and inexpensive means of transport.  We were prepared ahead of time with specific instructions which included bus number and how to recognize the correct stop for getting off.  As with every new experience here, grocery shopping was a great adventure.

 

 We are not yet accustomed to the grandiose totals at the bottom of our sales slips. Today we spent 698,32 hryven' on groceries.   Loaded down with our purchases, we decided to take a taxi back to our apartment.  The bus ride cost 3 hryven', the taxi trip back was 30.  It feels to us like we are being extravagant but the 30 hryven' taxi ride was really less than four dollars.

A stuffed green olive (the stuffing is a mini-cuke)

It will take awhile before we become effective label-readers here.  Even with very careful inspection of the visual clues provided and use of our extremely limited understanding of Cyrillic characters, I am sure a surprise or two will still creep in.  Maybe next trip we'll carry our dictionary.