The
present-day nation of Georgia, situated in the south-eastern corner of
Europe, covers an area of 69,700 sq km - a similar
size to the Republic of Ireland.
The country has a population of 4.7 million (July
2006 est.) comprised of 83.8% Georgian, 6.5% Azeri, 5.7% Armenian and 1.5%
Russian. Orthodox Christianity makes up 84% of the population. Another ten percent of the people follow the Muslim faith.
Georgia's economy has traditionally revolved around
Black Sea tourism. The country's mineral resources; coal, copper and
manganese have provided the base for a small mining sector. There is also
some machinery production and other light industry and the cultivation of
citrus fruits, hazel nuts, tea and grapes.
Although it possesses sizeable hydropower capacity,
Georgia nearly imports all of its supplies of natural gas and oil products.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylon ("BTC") pipeline
bringing oil from the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the
Mediterranean Sea flows through Georgia. It is the second largest pipeline in
the world after the Druzhba pipeline.
History
Georgia developed from the ancient kingdoms of
Iberia and Colchis (the destination of Jason and the Argonauts for the
legendary golden fleece). The region
fell under control of numerous empires including the Romans, Byzantines,
Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongols and Timurids.
The western Georgian Kingdom of Iberia became one of
the first states in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion under
King Mirian II in the early 4th
century A.D. Before this, Mithraism and Zoroastrianism were commonly
practiced.
The height of Georgian power and influence began in
the early 12th century and held until the Mongol
invasions of the early 13th century. By the middle
of the 15th century, most of Georgia's former neighbouring
states had disappeared. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in
1453 sealed the Black Sea and greatly restricted communications with much of
Europe.
From the 16th century on, the lands of Georgia
remained in flux between the neighbouring empires of Persia and the Ottomans.
In 1801, Russia absorbed the Georgian lands and through numerous wars from
1803 to 1878 against both the Ottomans and Persians, annexed several areas
including Batumi, Akhaltsikhe, Poti,
and Abkhazia.
After the Russian Empire collapsed into civil war,
Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan united to form the Transcaucasian
Commisariat on November 14, 1917 and later the Transcaucasian Federal Republic in April 22, 1918.
The new Republic issued paper money, the Transcaucasian ruble,
equivalent to the Russian ruble
at par. Denominations were 1, 3, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 250 rubles.
The notes bore Russian text on the obverse, with Armenian, Azerbaijani and
Georgian texts on the reverses.
The republic was short-lived as internal tensions
and external pressure from the German and Ottoman empires led to the
Democratic Republic of Georgia declaring its independence on May 26, 1918.
Georgia placed itself under German protection and ceded several territories
to the Ottoman empire.
Declaration
of independence by the Georgian parliament in 1918.
Georgia issued its first paper banknotes, the maneti which were initially at
par with the Transcaucasian ruble. This currency
continued in circulation until 1923 when they were replaced with the second
issue of Soviet Transcaucasian rubles.
Georgia Under Soviet Rule
Soviets troops moved into the region in 1921 and
Georgia was made part of the Transcaucasian
Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (TSFSR) along with neighbouring Armenia
and Azerbaijan. The Bolsheviks, having control of the Russian Central bank,
created one of the worst hyperinflations in history.
In 1923 and 1924, the Transcaucasian
Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (part of the USSR) issued notes of
denominations of up to 10 billion rubles.
The
250 million Transcaucasian ruble
banknote of 1924.
In 1924, it took five billion rubles
to buy what one 1914 ruble would have bought. In
1922, the Soviets introduced the Soviet Chervonetz
which was equal to 50 million pre-Soviet Russian rubles.
Amidst the social unrest of economic turmoil of a collapsing currency,
approximately 50,000 Georgians were executed between
1921-1924.
Harsh Soviet rule continued under Georgian-born Ioseb Jughashvili, (better
known by his nom de guerre Josef Stalin) who
eventually became the authoritarian ruler of the USSR after Lenin's death in
1924. An estimated 150,000 people were persecution as part of Stalin's Great
Purge during the late 1930's. Many more were deported to Gulag labour camps
in Siberia along with millions of Poles, Ukrainians and other ethnic
minorities.
In 1936, the TFSSR was dissolved and Georgia became
the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Georgia became one of the more
affluent republics of the USSR.
Georgian Independence
The country once again declared its independence as
a republic on April 6, 1991 during the breakup of the USSR. Like several
other former Soviet States, Georgia experienced hyperinflation.
The Georgian kupon
(GEK) was introduced in April 1993 and initially circulated at par with the
Russian ruble. The initial amount of kupons in circulation (M0) was 31.7 billion. Following
the July 1993 demonetization of pre-1993 rubles in
Russia, the Georgian authorities declared the kupon
to be the sole legal tender of the country in August 1993.
By the end of September, a mere six months later,
the currency in circulation had exploded 153-fold to
4.85 trillion kupons. The unofficial exchange rate
for the kupon peaked at five million to one U.S.
dollar in late September 1994.
The One Million
Georgian Kupon banknote from 1994 was the largest
denominated banknote for the newly formed nation of Georgia.
The following chart using data from The Georgian Hyperinflation and
Stabilization working paper (Wang, 1999)
details the months of official hyperinflation.
Month
|
CPI Change (%)
|
M0 (Billions GEK)
|
M0 Change (%)
|
Sep-93
|
50.4
|
204.7
|
8.3
|
Oct-93
|
66.3
|
305.5
|
49.2
|
Nov-93
|
137.6
|
560.8
|
83.6
|
Dec-93
|
67.0
|
663.1
|
18.2
|
Jan-94
|
168.4
|
926.4
|
39.7
|
Feb-94
|
35.3
|
1053.2
|
13.7
|
Mar-94
|
50.0
|
1104.4
|
4.9
|
Apr-94
|
84.5
|
1276.5
|
15.6
|
May-94
|
42.7
|
1646.3
|
29.0
|
Jun-94
|
-5.0
|
2046.3
|
24.3
|
Jul-94
|
6.2
|
2142.1
|
4.7
|
Aug-94
|
71.0
|
2455.9
|
14.6
|
Sep-94
|
211.1
|
4846.5
|
97.3
|
Avg
CPI Change
|
75.8
|
|
Introduction of the Georgian Lari
The new Georgian currency, the lari (GEL) was introduced on September 25, 1995
at an exchange rate of one million kupon to one lari. The lari became the sole
legal tender effective October 2, 1995.
As of November 2008, the official Currency in
Circulation figure released by the National
Bank of Georgia rests at 1.25 billion lari
representing a 13-fold increase over the 95 million lari
which replaced the kupon in 1995.
Thus far, in foreign exchange markets, the Georgian lari has fared much better than the currency it replaced.
Today, it trades at a similar exchange rate, albeit 25 percent
lower, to the 1.25 lari to the US dollar rate it
was introduced at over thirteen years ago.
Notes
Some have hypothesized that the legend of the
Golden Fleece was based on a local practice of placing a lamb's fleece at the
bottom of a stream to entrap gold dust being washed down from upstream. This
practice was still in use in recent times, particularly in the Svaneti region of Georgia.
During the reign of Queen Tamara, nearly the
whole of Transcaucasia was under Georgian rule.
Armed clashes with neighbouring Armenia over
disputed territories erupted on December 5, 1918. Both countries agreed to a
British-brokered ceasefire on December 31, 1918.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan also issued their
own currencies - the Armenian ruble and Azerbaijani
manat. These currencies were also introduced at par
with the Russian ruble.
Cagan's classic
definition for hyperinflation published in The Monetary
Dynamics of Hyperinflation (1956) states that hyperinflation begins in
the first month where price inflation exceeds 50 percent
and ends in the month in which price inflation last exceeds 50 percent and is followed by at least twelve months of less
than 50 percent price inflation.
References
Cagan, P. (1956), "The
Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation", in Studies in
the Quantity Theory of Money, edited by Milton Friedman, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press)
Wang,
J-Y (1999) "The Georgian Hyperinflation and
Stabilization", IMF Working
Paper WP/99/65 May
Mike Hewitt
Editor
DollarDaze.org
Mike Hewitt is the
editor of www.DollarDaze.org, a website pertaining to
commentary on the instability of the global fiat monetary system and
investment strategies on mining companies.
Disclaimer: The opinions
expressed above are not intended to be taken as investment advice. It is to
be taken as opinion only and I encourage you to complete your own due
diligence when making an investment decision.
© 2007 DollarDaze
|