Russian Ruble - RUB

The official currency of the Russian Empire and after of the USSR, the Russian Ruble (RUB) dates from the XIII century and its name comes from the verb “roubit” which means “mince” because, at the origin, the coins of the Russian currencies had to come from solid silver blocks.

Devalued several times in the 90s when there was a hyperinflation in the Russian Federation and in a lot of ex-« eastern block » countries, the Ruble became in 1998 a new Ruble on the basis 1000 times the value of the old Ruble.

This transition didn’t prevent another financial crisis in Russia, as the Ruble lost 70% of its value against the American dollar while it had been devalued (again).

A certain reliability of the exchange and monetary system chaired the introduction of the new Ruble as a currency totally convertible from 2005-2006, and the Russian currency slowly but continuously appreciated against the US dollar until July 2008, the USD/RUB cross went from an exchange value superior to USD/RUB = 28 to the lower exchange value USD/RUB = 23,0472 reached on July 15th, 2008.

In the context of the collapse of the world oil exchange rates and of world financial and stock-exchange crisis that made the investors ask for more dollars, the Russian Ruble depreciated against the US dollar since the Summer of 2008, and the USD/RUB was increasing to a higher USD/RUB = 36 reached in March 2009 (-56% for the Ruble in 7 months).

Then the Russian Ruble increased again in an atmosphere of general financial recovery and of an increasing adjustment of the world oil exchange rates, the USD/RUB cross had the exchange value USD/RUB = 28,8126 by the hand of November 2009.