Starting the conversation about the currency of Latvia, mention should be made of the country itself, its ethnic past, history and status.
A bit of history
The country got its name due to the ethnic name of the people living there - Latvians. Latvia is located on an territory equal to almost 65 thousand square kilometers, on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is divided into 26 counties and has 7 municipalities. This is a country of parliamentary rule. At its head is the President, elected by Parliament for a term of not more than three years. Almost two and a half million inhabitants live in the country.
During the existence of the country, the system has changed, its history, Latvia itself. The currency also underwent changes.
Repshik
In Soviet times, when Latvia was part of the USSR, the usual Soviet ruble was the monetary unit in the country. After the collapse of the state and obtaining the status of an independent state, a temporary monetary unit appeared in Latvia - the Latvian ruble.
The Latvian ruble was popularly called a “repshik”. It was printed on plain paper, without special protective characters. Even the ink on the room blurred when printing. Those banknotes were named after the head of the National Central Bank of Latvia, Einar Repse.
In those days, it was believed that Latvia was protected from counterfeiting money, the currency was signed by Repse. Now it looks ridiculous and funny. The Latvian ruble from 1992-1993 was easy to fake, printing "reps" on ordinary printers. However, surprisingly, the Latvian ruble was falsified infrequently - it was not a means of international payments.
Despite these facts, in those days the national currency of Latvia was stable, unlike the Russian and Belarusian rubles. In Latvia then there was no strong inflation. In those days, the former Soviet rubles were unloaded into wagons and taken out in an unknown direction, thereby giving rise to new oligarchs in the Russian Federation.
Lat
The age of “repshik” was short-lived. In 1993, the local currency was replaced by lats. They were exchanged at the exchange rate: 1 lat = 200 Latvian rubles. The exchange took place smoothly, without crisis situations, from March 5 to June 28, 1993.
The Latvian currency was a banknote and coins with different denominations. These were coins with different values: from 1 centime to 2 lats. Paper banknotes were a national currency with a face value of 5 to 500 lats. Each lat consisted of 100 centimes. Latvia owed ten years of stability to Latvia; this currency was able to survive difficult situations. During this ten-year period, commemorative commemorative coins of precious and non-precious metal alloys were issued in the country.
These were coins made of silver, cupronickel, gold and a mixture of silver with niobium. During the decade of “circulation” of lats in the country, 99 coins were minted, which are now unique.
In 2004, Latvia was admitted to NATO, in the same period it became a full member of the European Union.
Since 2005, the lats rate has been fully tied to the euro, which has remained unchanged for a long period. This lasted until the European exchange rate support mechanism began to work. As a result, the actual deviation of the national currency exchange rate from the target amounted to only 1%.
Euro
What is the currency in Latvia now? Since mid-January 2014, Latvia has completely switched to cash settlements in euros. The transition was virtually painless and occurred from the end of 2013 until January 14, 2014. And from January 1, at retail outlets and other places of settlements, payment was made in parallel in two currencies: lats and euros.
Now the "period of rule" of the lat is behind. Throughout the country, the euro has long been used in calculations - the common currency of the countries of the European Union. In the first half of 2015, Latvia is the President of the Council of the European Union. In honor of this event, coins dedicated to Latvia were issued. What Latvia can be proud of at the moment is the currency representing the euro, unshakable and solvent in any corner of the planet Earth.