Three weeks ago Croatia adopted euro as its currency and joined Europe's Schengen area. Last week we stopped paying with kuna (HRK), but as expected the transition hasn't been going very well. That "switch" in our heads will eventually happen, but right now it's very confusing and it'll obviously take some time.
Kuna got its name after an animal, a marten that lives in this part of Europe (usually a pine marten or other similar species). It was also my inspiration for this post, so I drew a crying marten leaving forever with a bundle of now unusable kuna banknotes and coins.
Having euro as a currency will hopefully have more positive consequences as time goes by, but right now many people are angry, sad or afraid of letting kuna go. One of the reasons is the fixed exchange rate of 7,53450, which isn't easy to convert and causes too much confusion. There are converter apps but in our minds we're still not sure how much we actually have - visually there's less money in our wallets and bank accounts. Math has never been one of my strengths, so I've been struggling with these new prices too.
Another reason for dissatisfaction is that this change comes during one of the worst periods, when prices of many essential products are influenced by worldwide crisis, especially the war in Ukraine. Many companies raised their prices but then additionally applied a higher exchange rate after we started using euro so that everything became even more expensive overnight, while our incomes stayed the same.
As I mentioned before, that switch in understanding our new currency's value will inevitably happen and it'll eventually stop being the top news story... After all, this is the third currency exchange in my lifetime - from Yugoslav dinar to Croatian dinar, then to Croatian kuna and now euro. I've got a feeling we'll survive this one too. It's the issue with the raging prices that will be more challenging than our math problem with the conversion rate.
My socials: https://linktr.ee/grdi
#digitalart #drawing #kuna #croatiankuna #marten #euro #croatia #europe #money #grdilicious #grdi
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar