As with most countries, inflation continues to have its wicked way with North Cyprus. Currently there are 39.7 Turkish lira to a pound sterling. 34 to a euro and 23 to a Canadian dollar. That’s some level of edging up since we arrived here. But, much more striking, there were 8.2 lira to the euro when we were living in Famagusta in August of 2020. Not so bad for people whose income is entirely in other currencies but pretty difficult for people being paid in lira.
The problem is not entirely new. The first year we were retired we were staying in Marmaris, Turkey in the winter of 2001 and visited a supermarket. The prices on the shelves were digital, which initially seemed pretty high tech. Until we realised that they were changing so rapidly that replacing price tags manually was becoming too difficult. It was literally possible to pick up a loaf of bread and find by the time one reached the till the price had gone up.
The Turkish bills are in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200 lira. There are coins but they’re actually a nuisance - heavy in the pocket but never seem to add up to enough to buy as much as a candy bar. Shops end up needing them for change but most people simply don’t want them. Haven’t tried them on the dolmuş drivers but shouldn’t be at all surprised if they refused to take them. One lira coins and the lesser 25 and 50 kurus are quite common. Apparently 10, 5, and even 1 kurus coins exist, though they’re rare and we haven’t seen them. Can’t imagine any point to minting them. If one lira is worth 3 euro cents and a 25 kurus coin is worth a quarter of that….
And J did discover in his pocket a 5 lira coin. Not nearly as useless though just about as rare, so we had to look it up to be sure what it was.