Showing posts with label money machines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label money machines. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 September 2009

On paying in cash



The Russians have a smart answer to the tendency for paying for stuff in cash - machines in all kinds of public places which you feed with rubles in order to top-up your pay-as-you-go phone and to pay for home internet (and probably other things which I haven't found out about yet!)

The (fuzzy) picture shows such a machine in a butchers shop.

Monday, 7 September 2009

Cash economy

Have discovered a minor but important difference. Everything is done in cash here (we get paid in cash at the end of the month in a brown envelope). Paying the deposit and first month’s rent is a bit of problem, with plastic cards more of a difficulty than a solution. Since I can only draw out a certain amount each day from the ATM – and with only some banks such as Gasprom and SBER not charging a fee - I have been haunting the local cash machines all week accumulating roubles – and living off my lunch vouchers for food.

Even handing over large wads of cash seems clumsy, I’m just not used to counting the stuff.

(and have just discovered that I am being charged a fee by my bank account)