Bulgarian lev

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The Lev (lv) (Bulgarian: лев, plural - лева, левове (leva)) is the currency of Bulgaria. It is divided in 100 stotinki (singular - stotinka). In archaic Bulgarian the word "lev" meant "lion," akin to the Romanian and Moldovan lei.

The lev was introduced as Bulgaria's legal tender in 1881 and was at the time equal to the French franc. Since then, it has undergone three redenominations. In 1952, following wartime inflation, a "new" lev replaced a hundred "old" ones. In 1962, another redenomination took place at the rate of ten to one. After this the lev remained fairly stable for almost three decades. However, like other Communist countries' currencies, it was not freely convertible for Western funds. Therefore, while the official exchange rate was around 90 stotinki to the US dollar, black market rates were five to ten times higher.

After the fall of Communism, Bulgaria experienced several episodes of drastic inflation and currency devaluation. In order to change this, in 1997 the lev was pegged to the Deutsche Mark (DEM), at rate of 1000 leva to 1 DEM. On July 5, 1999 the lev was redenominated at 1000:1 with 1 new lev equal to 1 Deutsche Mark. The ISO 4217 currency code for the new Bulgarian Lev is BGN, while the code for the old Lev was BGL.

With the replacement of the Deutsche Mark by the Euro, the lev's peg switched to the Euro as well, at the rate of 1.95583 BGN = 1 EUR, which is the Deutsche Mark's fixed exchange rate to Euro. Since 1997 Bulgaria has been in a system of currency board, and all Bulgarian currency in circulation has been backed 100% by the foreign exchange reserves of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB). The rate is unlikely to change before the lev's retirement.

Curiously, on 25 April 2005, when Bulgaria's EU accession treaty was signed, the BNB issued a commemorative coin with the face value of 1.95583 leva.

The Lev is expected to be replaced by the Euro in 2009, soon after Bulgaria becomes a member of the European Union (probably in 2007).

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