MARKOVIAN PARALLAX DENIGRATE FULL

The Moldovan Central Bank does do a fairly good job of retiring worn out bank notes fairly quickly and it’s rare to see bills that are 10 years old or older.Ĭompared to other European money, the Moldovan lei bank notes are tiny. Moldovan lei doesn’t age very well but it is light years ahead of some other currencies I’ve seen, particularly those in Central America and Southeast Asia, which rapidly end up looking like toilet paper. Moldovan money, on the other hand, is made from a kind of cloth paper, similar to American dollars, but far inferior. Romanian money is also well designed and has a lot of cool features. Romanian money is made out of some kind of durable plastic that takes a lot of abuse before it starts to look faded or worn out. I got used to Romanian money, which is absolutely top notch quality, its only peer being Canadian dollars. So sadly, there’s nothing Moldovan about it at all.īetween the poor color choices, the single portrait of Stefan cel Mare looking confused, the Miorita poem and the weird buildings on the obverse of every bill, this is some of the ugliest, most poorly-designed money I’ve ever seen. The obverse of the 200 lei note is the Chisinau City Hall, which is all very nice and patriotic, except that the architecture style is Italian gothic and was designed by a ethnic Italian (but Russian citizen) named Bernadazzi. Furthermore, it is located inside territory controlled by the de facto independent “country” of Transnistria, which is depressing. It was built by Stefan cel Mare (yay for him) but is now a ruin. The one exception to the pattern of showing Orthodox monasteries is the 100 lei note, the obverse of which shows the Tighina citadel. Again, this tells you right away that the population is pretty religious (which it is) and that the Orthodox faith is dominant (which it is). On the back of each note (not pictured) is a different Orthodox monastery. The Stefan Cel Mare on the money frankly looks startled and/or confused, poor guy. Stefan Cel Mare lived 500 years ago so obviously there aren’t any photographs of him but there are much better portraits in existence than the one the central bank chose to feature on the money. As I mentioned yesterday, any time you see a country with just one (dead) person on them, it’s a sign of political problems because otherwise there’d be more people on the money to represent the country and culture. Jeez.Īll the notes feature Stefan cel Mare on the front. Uh, what? What victory? Moldova hasn’t won any victories in the past 200 years. Easily the least inspirational text I’ve ever seen in my life to put on the money.Īccording to the BNM (central bank), that little “V” between the words is supposed to be “V for Victory”. Although it is beautifully written, the message of the poem is “when someone is trying to kill you, just give up and let them do it”. This is a line from the famous poem Miorita, which I’ve written about before. Here is the list of colors for Moldovan money:Įxcept for the 5 and 20 lei notes, all the rest of Moldovan money looks nearly identical at a distance.Īt the bottom of each note you see a little circle that says “pe-un picior de plai pe-o gura de rai”. I’ve been out at night and had enormous trouble distinguishing one bill from another. Notice anything? They are almost identical.

The “grades” I am assigning are based on a scale from 1-10 where 10 is the best. Unfortunately, when they had a chance to design an all new currency, they did a pretty crappy job. Prior to independence in 1991, Moldova used the Soviet ruble. Why is the money in 3 European countries called “lions”? Don’t ask questions, that’s why! Just like its neighbors in Bulgaria and Romania, the name literally means “lions”. Moldovan money is called the leu (singular) or lei (plural). As I said, you can tell a lot about a country by its money.

MARKOVIAN PARALLAX DENIGRATE FULL

Yesterday I mentioned the money here in Moldova but now it’s time for a full post on the topic.

Markovian parallax denigrate