Inflation in Yugoslavia, 1980 to 1989

We have visited Yugoslavia four different years. When we first visited in July 1980, we received 27 Yugoslavian Dinar for each United States Dollar. On our second visit, when we arrived in Split, in August 1985, the exchange rate was about 330 Dinar to one Dollar.

When we visited Ljubljana, in October 1988 we received 4,000 Dinar for a Dollar, and when we crossed the border from Greece, to Yugoslavia, in June 1989 we received 14,309 Dinar for each Dollar. At the border we exchanged the Italian and Greek money we had (about $167 worth), and received 2,400,000 Yugoslavian Dinar, a stack of money an inch thick. No way it would fit in my wallet, Emmy had to carry it in her purse.

By June 1989, 14,300 Dinar would buy what 27 Dinar bought in 1980. If someone had kept $530 worth of Dinars from 1980, they would be worth $1 in June 1989. If a Yugoslav had a debt of 140,000 Dinar in 1980, today it could be paid off with a $10 bill! On the other hand, if the Yugoslav had kept the 140,000 dinar as cash since 1980, today it would buy lunch!

June 1989, it required nearly 300,000 Dinars just to fill our vehicle’s tank with diesel fuel. At the Post Office in Petrovac, we paid 67,000 Dinar to mail six postcards and a letter to the US, and one postcard and a letter to Germany.

In Bar, Yugoslavia, Emmy bought a dress for our granddaughter, for about 100,000 Dinar ($7). We used our Visa card, but the exchange rate became 50,000-to-one before we were billed, so the dress only cost $2.01. They still received 100,000 Dinar for the dress, but the Dinar weren’t worth much when the bill was presented to Visa for payment.

Between Bar and Budva, Yugoslavia, we stopped at a marketplace which included a flea market, and we found copper pots for sale by some Gypsies. We dickered and dickered on the price. They would get confused on the current inflation rate, then we would dicker some more. Finally we bought three nice pots, for about 180,000 Dinar. The postage to mail them to California, from Germany, cost more than the pots did.

Later in 1989, we read in the newspaper that when the exchange rate exceeded 100,000 Dinar to a Dollar, the Government finally did something about it. We wouldn’t try to explain what happened, even if we knew.