“Of course, as soon as I found out that the ruble had collapsed, I ran to my bank,” says Proshina, a client of VTB banking, the second largest Russian financial institution, only behind Sberbank, both targets of the announced sanctions. .
A former Soviet television journalist, Natalia, 75, was preparing to “withdraw (all her) money so as not to lose everything again,” as happened in the 1998 financial crisis.
“Then we lost all our money, including what my husband had obtained (on a mission) abroad. I no longer want to play the game of the State (…) which can very easily decree martial law and confiscate my savings at any time”, under the pretext of the war in Ukraine, he exclaims in a military tone.
Distrust
The Russian Central Bank announced on Monday a sharp increase in its guideline rate, by 10.5 points, to 20%, after having tried everything from Thursday to “stabilize the situation”, intervening in the foreign exchange market.
In St. Petersburg, about fifteen people were waiting this Monday morning for the opening of a branch of the Russian subsidiary of the Austrian bank Raiffeisen.
Among these, Svetlana Paramonova, 58, says she wants to “withdraw all her money to keep it at home.” “It’s safer, since we no longer understand anything that is happening,” she sums up.
At his side, Anton Zakharov, 45, wants to do the same, since “he no longer has any confidence, neither in power nor in the banks.”
