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New U.S. $100 bill worries Russians

MOSCOW -- American media events tend not to get much notice in Russia. John Wayne Bobbitt was never a household name in Moscow. The Million Man March was greeted with a shrug. Even O.J. failed to register.

But when the U.S. Treasury Department said it would introduce a redesigned $100 bill in February, the announcement -- hardly a blockbuster in Washington -- created a storm here.

After all, if there's anywhere in the world where the dollar is still almighty, it's Russia. More than $100 million comes into the country each day, and there is something on the order of $20 billion in greenbacks in circulation, more than any country outside the United States itself. That comes to $400 for every family in Russia, probably as much or more than the value of Russian rubles in circulation.

And 80 percent of it is in $100 bills. Grandmothers save C-notes to safeguard their retirements. Slick New Russians in Moscow peel them from fat wads to pay for dinner, a sports car or a new dacha in the country. Mafia dons carry U.S. hundreds around in attaché cases.

Now, with the introduction of the new hundreds just weeks away, Russians have a serious case of the jitters. Conditioned by repeated ruble "reforms" during the years -- most recently in 1993, when people were told suddenly that their older notes had to be traded in immediately -- Russians are afraid their $100 bills too will lose their value.

"People are all stirred up. They're calling like crazy," said Sergei Yegorov, president of the Association of Russian Banks. "Even today, a guy was in here asking me what to do with his savings, whether he should change his hundreds for twenties and fifties. ... There are grounds for this worry, because Russians have been deceived by their own government so many times."

To calm Russian dollar-holders, the U.S. government has launched a massive publicity campaign in advance of the introduction of the new, harder-to-counterfeit note. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, focus groups have been organized to fine-tune TV, radio and print advertising blitz. Some 100,000 leaflets and 1.2 million posters are being distributed in Russian. Hot lines with Russian-speaking operators are on duty to answer Russians' questions about the new hundreds and soothe their anxieties.

The message: The U.S. government has never recalled or devalued dollars since they were first issued in 1861, and it won't now. No need to rush to trade in your savings. Old hundreds will still be good everywhere.