Shocks of 1991 - how Pavlov's reform robbed the people

On January 22, 1991, Belarusians and residents of other republics of the Soviet Union experienced a new financial shock. At midnight, 50- and 100-ruble banknotes of the 1961 model ceased to circulate. This was reported on the Vremya program after 9 p.m., when savings banks and stores were already closed. Only three days were given to exchange old banknotes. The limit per person was 1,000 rubles, and the average salary in the Soviet Union at that time was about 500 rubles. What was happening would be called the Pavlov reform in honor of its initiator, the newly appointed Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov. In about a month, half of the country found itself below the poverty line. "The most interesting thing is that after nine o'clock in the evening, all the shops suddenly closed," recalls Petr Borisov, a participant in the 1991 strike and senior foreman of the production department of the Minsk Electrotechnical Plant named after Kozlov. "I remember I went into the Stolichny store near the Philharmonic. People were buying cans of tomato juice. They were buying tickets for travel, plane tickets for this money, so that they could later refuse and return them. I also refused the trip, went to work the next day, although I took time off in order to exchange it. Of course, in that era, people liked to keep money in jars, only in glass ones. "I know people who have lost a lot of money," said a witness of those events.

The formal reason for exchanging money was to combat counterfeit rubles. However, the calculation was completely different. Taking away at least part of the amounts of money from the population that were not backed by goods. This sharply turned people in the republics against the Union government.

In the queues, they curse Pavlov, and formulate the goal of the reform unequivocally - to rob the people.

Roman Vnuchko:

"Nothing came of it. The people rebelled, lost huge amounts of money. This reform gave nothing but losses."

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