Bulgaria's cash crisis

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1997, Bulgaria was in financial meltdown with hyperinflation making money in the country worth a lot less. Bulgaria had emerged out of communism following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Like other post-Soviet regimes in eastern Europe, the country found the transition from communism to capitalism harder than expected. The President of Bulgaria, Petar Stoyanov, knew he had to do something and a recovery plan from one of Ronald Reagan’s former economic advisers was on the table. But would it work? Matt Pintus has been speaking to the economist, Steve Hanke. Photo: Steve Hanke and Liliane Hanke meet Petar Stoyanov. Credit: Steve Hanke

Transcript

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0:00.0	On the podium, the podcast where Olympic and Paralympic athletes share their remarkable personal journeys.
0:07.0	They make you proud to have believed until the end.
0:11.0	Search for on the podium.
0:12.0	We're ready to go, we're ready to have fun and ready to party.
0:15.0	Wherever you found this podcast.
0:23.0	Hello and welcome to this episode of the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:29.0	Today we're going back 25 years to win an audacious plan by one of Ronald Reagan's former advisers
0:37.0	helped save Bulgaria from economic ruin.
0:41.0	In 1997, Bulgaria was in the midst of one of the coldest winters it had ever experienced
0:48.0	and its people were starving.
0:50.0	I can say this is the biggest crisis for the last 25 years.
0:55.0	That's Diana Miteva, she was only 12 at the time but she remembers those winter months like they were yesterday.
1:03.0	My mother said her monthly salary was four doors and she could not buy the ticket for the bus to go to work.
1:12.0	So we had to walk and it was a very severe weather conditions like minus 20 minus 15.
1:19.0	Most of the people in this time changed from electricity to some wooden fireplace because it was cheaper.
1:27.0	In the evenings and the darkness with candles with my parents eating just bread and was like going back in the time.
1:37.0	Money had become almost worthless in Bulgaria and with the rate of inflation rising every single day,
1:43.0	the situation was getting worse.
1:48.0	But for the first time in Eastern Europe, the country is settling its political future on the streets.
1:53.0	In Bulgaria, the opposition parties are demanding early elections determined to remove from power the former communists,
2:00.0	the accused of crippling its economy.
2:02.0	January was one of the famous strikes towards the building of the parliament.
	...

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