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Kyrgyzstan celebrates 26th anniversary of own currency

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BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan on Friday (May 10) marked the 26th anniversary of its national currency, the som, AKIpress reported.

Kyrgyzstan introduced the som on May 10, 1993, becoming the first post-Soviet state to shed the ruble and put its own banknotes into circulation. The move represented a starting point for the country's independent economic policy and monetary policy.

"For 26 years the Kyrgyz som has been able to prove its solvency and to retain its stability despite periodic economic and political upheavals," the National Bank said.

The 10-KGS ($0.14) bills of 1994 to 1997 bore the portrait of Kasym Tynystanov, who was executed in 1938 during Stalin's Great Terror. Tynystanov helped create a Latin alphabet for the Kyrgyz language in the 1920s.

Since its introduction, the som has become "not only the main instrument of independent monetary and credit policy, but also a symbol of the independence of a sovereign state", said President Sooronbay Jeenbekov at an international conference last May in Bishkek celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Kyrgyz som.

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