Recently, as a result of the Crimean Referendum residents of the peninsula supported the choice to join the Russian Federation. Immediately, Russia eagerly welcomed the new federation subject. However, the sweet spot has brought a bunch of problems. One of them is massive arrears of wages, salaries, pensions, and social allowances which should have been paid by the former federal center. To deal with this problem, Crimea’s parliament urgently passed an interim provision “About the Bank of Crimea” and proclaimed the Russian ruble to be the official currency of the newly established sovereign state. Besides, the parliament’s resolution includes a clearly stated stance concerning the hryvnia. A spokesperson of Crimea’s Supreme Council specified that “Ukraine’s hryvnia is also considered the official currency until January 1, 2016 according to clause 48 of the interim provision”. So, the locals do not have to get into panic. The approved provision “About the Bank of Crimea” spells out the mechanism of managing cash circulation and money withdrawal. Only the Bank of Crimea will be given such powers. After the new authorities founded their central bank, they obviously need funds for “a full-scale performance of the financial institution”. Therefore, Crimea’s parliament assigned the Council of Ministers to make up a petition to the Kremlin requesting a financial aid for the Crimean republic. This step gives away the lack of experience in the big-league politics, but the demand is rather high. There are no exact figures, but they request “an amount needed for a non-stop operation of the public sector in Crimea”. In response, Russia’s central bank management confirmed that it is ready to carry out engineering work and to tune up the mechanism of the Russian ruble circulation in Crimea. Meanwhile, the central bank is preparing special payment processing machines for delivery. Russia’s central bank released a communique saying that “In Crimea, the regulator will place special portable payment processing machines which will issue humanitarian aid, pensions, and other allowances in rubles as well as handle non-cash transactions. On other words, it will operate as an interim local treasury.”
