With our first night and a day behind us, Stan and I wanted to begin setting up our new home. The house we rented was only partially furnished. Despite having 3 small bedrooms, only one room had any furniture: a combo bed frame and wall unit (but no mattress). The kitchen boasted a table with creative seating for six; a semi-working oven; a tiny motorhome-sized refrigerator; one cupboard; and a sink. There was no counter space anywhere. The living room was bare except for a small (but lovely) credenza. We had a lot to take care of in a short time if we were to move in by the end of the week.
Stan and I, with the baby in her sling, made our first stop at the local go-to furniture store, Simpo, where it seemed everybody bought their furniture. I was surprised to discover it was unattractively situated underground with zero (zero!) windows, approached via gray, grungy, uneven stairs, another sad testimony to communist-era design.
Despite being fairly large in square-footage, our hopes for one-stop shopping evaporated with our first step inside. Due to U.N.-imposed sanctions (ie., no foreign goods allowed into the country as punishment for the Bosnian War), there was very (very) little furniture available. It turned out that everyone we met with nice furniture had bought theirs years ago.
However, Simpo carried nationally-made bed sets, so after hunting around in semi-darkness, we did find a big mattress for our room, a bunk bed set for the girls' room, and a pair of mattresses for the boys that suited. Excellent. With our decision made, it was time to pay.
The price tags were a bit confusing. Along with inventory tracking numbers, there were two prices on each tag. Currency in use at that time in Yugoslavia included both dinars and Deutsch marks—dinars for lesser items, Deutsch marks for greater amounts. The German mark was a far more stable currency, so items of greater value required DM. Thus, items at the grocery store were all priced in dinars; at the furniture store, priced in both; at the auto sellers, Deutsch marks only.
Our total for the mattresses and bunkbed frame squeaked under the threshold of requiring Deutsch marks, so we needed several thousand dinars in cash to pay for it. There were no ATMs. Credit cards were unheard of. Accordingly, we headed to the bank to exchange dollars for dinars—a big (big!) wad of dinars because the highest denomination of dinar at that time was a 20-dinar bill (value approx. $4usd)
Yes, that’s right. One fallout of the breakup of the former Yugoslav Republic was hyper-inflation. Thousands, millions, billions of dinars, all became totally worthless.
He's a billionaire! (not!)
When the new dinar was put into play, the highest currency printed was 20 dinars in the hopes of keeping inflation at bay. So, when Stan handed over dollar bills at the bank, he left with a fat (fat!) fistful of dinars.
Upon our return to Simpo, the salespeople (all of them) were on coffee break, so we had to wait. I found this beyond annoying, but soon learned that this was no anomaly. Under the communist system, the purpose of a business was to employ people (whether needed or not), so every current or formerly run government business at that time had a multitude of workers, usually doing very little. So here as well— at least six employees for that empty store and everyone taking their break at the same time. With a now-cranky baby in my arms, I was silently fuming. And I always thought myself a patient person. How God must smile.
When coffee break ended and it came time to pay, Stan laboriously counted out several thousand dinars, 20 dinars at a time, and then the shop clerk insisted on recounting it….twice. In retrospect, we must have been their first customers in a while, and they couldn’t believe we had actual, good legal tender. But at the time I had to take myself out of the store, to keep my thoughts under control.
At long last, the recounting finished and Stan appeared, and by God’s grace, we had one major task accomplished along with a bit of “character growth opportunity.”