Uzbekistan introduced a new coin series in 2018. Why aren't people using it?
Most coins date from the reign of the previous president, Islam Karimov. He was an unreconstructed nationalist with KGB tendencies in the mould of Putin. Under communism, inflation "does not exist" (it does, but it takes other forms). Karimov therefore denied inflation - it ran to over 1000% shortly after independence - kept the currency inconvertible, banned export of foreign currency, forced a minimum of daily tourist expenses etc. The result was a black market for dollars and euros, of course.
Part of this policy was to issue coins and not issue high value banknotes. Coins were used for a while, but soon, people had large wads of banknotes only, practically all 1000 s'om notes. The 500 s'om notes were in very bad shape, the 2000 notes rarely encountered and the 5000 notes were a novelty item people would show their friends. The picture shows what I typically carried around.
When Karimov died in 2016, there was a power struggle. He was eventually succeeded by general Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was far less beholden to KGB thinking (NOT difficult). Mirziyoyev made the currency convertible, exploding the black market. He's promoting tourism, but is still against any form of economic power he cannot control, though. In terms of purchasing power, I think the s'om is now overvalued, which explains why the 2018 coins are not used either.
Peter
