Ukrainian hryvnia

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Image:Hryvnia symbol.png The hryvnia (Ukrainian гривня) has been the national currency of Ukraine since 1996.

1 Introduction
2 History
3 Banknotes and coins
4 See also
5 External links

Introduction

Image:1 Hryvnia-Coin front.jpg The hryvnia replaced the karbovanets, the currency Ukraine used after the breakup of the Soviet Union (karbovanets is equivalent to ruble in the Ukrainian language). One hryvnia equalled 100,000 karbovanets.

Hryvnia is often transliterated as grivna or hryvna. The hryvnia is divided into 100 kopiykas (singular kopiyka).

The hryvnia symbol is a cursive Ukrainian letter He, with a double horizontal stroke symbolizing stability. Hryvnia is abbreviated "грн." (hrn.) in Ukrainian. The hryvnia is represented by the ISO 4217 currency code UAH, or 980. The hryvnia symbol ₴ [may not be rendered in all browsers] has been accepted for encoding as U+20B4 in Unicode 4.1 released in 2005. The specific design of the hryvnia sign is a result of a public contest held by National Bank of Ukraine in 2003.

As of February 21, 2006, there were 5.05000 hryvnias to the US dollar or 6.012530 to the euro at official exchange rate of National Bank of Ukraine.

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History

Hryvnia was used as currency in Kievan Rus' in the 11th century. The word hryvnia (or grivna) was derived from the Slavic hryva. Originally the word meant neck as opposed to the current mane. Hryvnia meant something valuable worn around the neck, usually made of silver or gold. Later the word was used to describe silver or gold ingots of a certain weight. The other lesser currency units were nogata — a fur of a large animal such as a bear or a wolf, kuna — a fur of smaller animals, like mink or sable (compare Croatian kuna), and the cheapest was veksha — a fur of a squirrel.

In 2004 the National Bank of Ukraine has officially recommended to distinguish between hryvnia and hryvna in both historical and practical means. Linguistic research was cited as proof that hryvnia refers to medieval currency and hryvna to the female decoration of that time. The proper name for modern Ukrainian currency is гривня (hryvnia).

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