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Crimea and Sevastopol

Shops in Crimea changing over to prices denominated in rubles

SIMFEROPOL, March 23, /ITAR-TASS/. Shops in Crimea are getting ready to change over to pricing in Russian rubles after but some retailers will be unable to do it as of Monday, March 24 because of technicalities. An Itar-Tass reporter could see it while making a tour of several supermarkets in Simferopol and Sevastopol.

Labels with dual prices have appeared in some department stores. The prices in Ukrainian hrivnas as converted into rubles at a fixed exchange rate of 3.8 rubles per one hrivna.

Shops of the Epitsentr hypermarkets of construction materials and household appliances are distributing leaflets that say ‘Some prices in rubles and hrivnas’.

However, dual prices have so far been appointed for the commodities of 1,000 and more hrivnas apiece.

Along with it, neither cashiers nor managers at an Epitsentr hypermarket in Simferopol were able to tell whether the transactions in rubles would begin Monday - the day on which the ruble would become the official monetary unit in Crimea.

“At this moment, our cash registers are aligned to pricing in hrivnas,” a manager told Itar-Tass.

A manager at a Silpo food store said the Silpo chain would unlikely be able to change over to giving out receipts with dual prices so promptly. “We’ve just given a task to our IT team to design a new soft for the cash registers,” he said.

A man owning a small food store in Sevastopol said he could begin transactions in rubles as of Monday but officials at the city administration have recommended the business community to abstain from quoting dual prices for the time being, since “this might be confusing for customers”.

“In other words, they offer us to the convert the totals into rubles at a rate of 1 hrivna to 3.8 rubles.

Itar-Tass said earlier that some retail businesses in Simferopol - hotels and restaurants - had begun to accept rubles without waiting until Monday but the bills and receipts were still made out in hrivnas.

A week ago, residents of Crimea had a landslide vote for bidding farewell to Ukraine and joining Russia in a referendum on determining the future of the peninsular region. The Russian authorities took the steps towards formalizing a new status of Crimea by the end of the week.

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Crimea and Sevastopol

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