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Comment by MrDisposable | Hacker News Reader

Russia is committing suicide. And I hope it's not a physical suicide.

In any case, there's no coming back from this. My earlier prognosis of being trapped in a slavic North Korea technologically enslaved to China is starting to sound like an optimistic outcome.

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Well, tomorrow we'll witness the economical suicide.

Sberbank - 1$ = 110,49₽

Tinkoff - 1$ = 153,75₽

And the markets are not even opened.

For the reference, before Putin started full-scale war against the Ukraine:

1$ = 78.66₽ (23rd Feb)

It's far from the first time rouble has plummeted. Just a reminder that 10 years ago, before this whole Crimea thing, 1$ was around 30₽. In the 90s and early 00s rouble was unstable enough that cellular carriers billed in dollars and many stores had prices in "у.е." that were also dollars just with a different name.

What do you mean when you say "Sberbank - 1$ = 110,49₽" and "Tinkoff - 1$ = 153,75₽"? Are these different exchange rates for different banks?

He means that the local currency is set to depreciate by half in a span of a week. And the bottom might be far far lower.

So these figures are from different times as well as different banks? If so then cool, that was the missing piece.

different banks? - Yes.

different times - No.

How extremely odd. Wonder why the values haven't converged? Do people inside the country not have access to this information? What's stopping someone from buying 150 rubles for a dollar and then buying $1.40ish for those same 150 rubles?

I should have perhaps mentioned in the original post:

1$ = 152,3₽ (buying 1 US dollar)

1$ = 85,7₽ (selling 1 US dollar).

Just because you pay 152₽ to buy 1$ doesn't mean you can sell it at the same price. At least banks won't buy it.

According to banki.ru the best price for selling US dollar now is 94,00₽.

Hope that clarifies it.

I see, the friction is in doing the reverse transaction. I guess you could find a buyer outside the traditional markets to complete the arbitrage transactions but that's going to be risky. Thanks for the clarification.

In times of such turmoil the spread between buy and sell price becomes so vast that it'll shield the exchangers from such schemes.

Yes. You can purchase dollars in exchange of Rubles.

Previous week it was aprox. 80 Rubles per U.S. Dollar.

Now due to the White House's statement that there will be sanctions against the Russia's central bank (they shouldn't able to use the reserves to keep Ruble stable) it is predicted that Ruble will collapse tomorrow.

It seems like too large a difference between banks, wouldn't this lead to arbitrage?

I believe currently only one of these banks can enable you to get your money out of Russia — thus the difference.

> slavic North Korea

Russian Federation is mostly not slavic. Secession of federation regions (as it happened with USSR) is the next step on the path of the least resistance.

You do realise that Russians are Slavs, correct?

There is an argument that stereotypical ethnic Russians are Finno-Ugric people.

Moreover, if you go almost anywhere in Siberia, 50% or more of the locals will be of ethnic minorities native to the area (you may describe their appearance as Asian). More in rural areas. Many regions are dual language, Russian + indigenous. This includes the largest administrative region on Earth that is not a country.

> ethnic stereotypical Russians are Finno-Ugric people

They speak Russian, a Slavic language. The culture is clearly linked and descended from the Old Slavonic people.

I'd love to know about the thinking as I'm scratching my head here. This is the first I've heard this claim and I am half Finnish, quarter Russian by ethnicity. My grandparents certainly did not think they were from the same ethnic group.

The first argument is theoretical and controversial. The second point is not.

What part of Russian being a Slavic language is controversial?

Poster is not saying that — they are answering the immediate parent’s question, not analyzing his arguments, and instead analyzing the two arguments of the grandparent post.

> They speak Russian, a Slavic language

Modern Russian is a little bit older than hundred years.

"Pre-reform" language was significantly different in script, vocabulary and grammar and wasn't older than hundred years itself. Before Napoleonic war 1812 nobility was speaking French, ruling family was German and serfs were speaking Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian or one of the Turkic dialects.

The only slavic parts remaining in the modern Russian is Cyrillic script and words borrowed from Ukrainian.

Not exactly true. The Bible was translated into Russian in 1820 so we have a pretty good idea of what Russian language was like back then (99% similar to today’s language). There were a few minor changes to the script, but nothing crazy.

The phrase "Grattez le Russe, et vous verrez un Tartare" (Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tatar) wasn't invented yesterday.

"Slavic Russians" are mostly Belarusians (Smolensk Region) or forcibly assimilated Ukrainians (Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh) or not even assimilated Ukrainians in Kuban (they still speak Ukrainian, but have their own name for it).

They may be considered Slavs but the reality is many of them are more Mongolian and very different from Slavs. Even their language shows signs of Mongolian influence. The Mongolians could not pronounce certain sounds properly and the Russian language exhibits these pronunciations.

Russians are just one of dozens of nationalities in Russian Federation.

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