For the history (somebody will read this in 50 years): pension 1,410 som. Electricity from January is 0.32 som per kilowatt, Iradenergo now. A loaf of bread 3 som, buckwheat 1 kg 14 som, my heart pills 65 som, these are in dollars really. The marshrutka 2 som.
I don't complain. In 1992 there was nothing at all.
A short note for the record. The heart pills cost 52 som a pack. I take one pack for five weeks. Bread 2.6, potatoes 1.7 a kilo. The marshrutka 1.7 som. The pension is almost enough for one person who does not travel and does not get sick.
I give my pension book to the shelf and say to myself: Viktor, you have lived through worse inflation, the one of 1992, when we calculated the salary in pairs of boots.
The pension now comes to the Talasbank card. I was against, but they gave a plastic card with my name in Latin letters: SUKHANOV VIKTOR. Lyudmila's card is "SUKHANOVA LYUDMILA", and she says it sounds like a ballerina.
Before, I stood in the queue with a book and a thermos. Now I stand in the queue at the machine, with the same book and the same thermos, but the queue is shorter and the machine does not smile, and also does not ask where I was in 1975. Progress.
From the 17th the som is 8.40 to the dollar. Before it was 5 from 1993, fifteen years. My pension did not change: it is the same number of som. Only now the som is smaller.
My neighbour says: it is for the export, for NurGaz, so the oil is cheaper to sell. Maybe. I am a technical person, I understand: if you change the scale on the manometer, the pressure stays the same. But the pension is not pressure. It is buckwheat and medicine.
Medicine is in dollars. I will plant more potatoes this year.