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A scene from Lola rennt. (source)
Eagle-eyed crni recently posted this screenshot from the German film Lola rennt. (Run Lola Run) In the background you can see the fiercly-bearded Slovenian painter Rihard JakopiÄ?, who graces the 100-tolar note.
The majority of people who saw the film undoubtedly didn’t recognize it, and now that Slovenia has confirmed that it will adopt the euro next year, even less people will recognize it in the future. My children, for example, will probably have no idea what it is — just as they won’t have any clue about the two currencies (the dinar and the transitional tolar) that were in circulation here just 15 years ago. The Slovenian tolar had a short but great run, and in just four months, it will be a memory.
I think I’ll miss JakopiÄ? the most.
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better not to get too attached to anything in a country with a buddhist president
Best. Comment. Ever. Thanks for the laugh, pujs.
The wierdest thing about losing tolar is this … since the late Yugoslavia, we always had to deal with foreign currency. Before the euro, THE foreign currency was the deutsch Mark (DM), it was a symbol of the developed, wealthy, stable west. Any time we traveled abroad, we first changed our money to DM and then from DM to whatever money they used in the country we were at. We also kept all the large prices in DM, e.g. in yugoslavia, a house or a car was never worth whatever milions or bilions or trilions of dinars, the price was nominated in DM. Not officially, of course, but general public unofficially always negotiated and traded in DM. Needless to say, we all had our savings as a fold of those blue Clara Schumann notes .
I even had a system of major european currency exchange rates and it was, naturally, based on the DM. I used it so frequently, that at any time i was able to convert, say, austrian schilling to italian lira out of my head. The conversion went through the DM, naturally
Well, as the DM was replaced by euro, most of the calculating went away, but most of us still convert our tolars into a wad of euro notes if we travel abroad.
Well, here’s the weird thing … all of the sudden, we won’t have to do that any more. We’ll be using one of the world’s major currencies in our day-to-day lives and it will be most natural, that they’ll just take our money, the euro, anywhere we go. No more calculating, exchange rates, losing a percent, gaining a percent … I think i’ll kind of miss it. And the fact, that my pay check will come at a thousand-something sort of intimidates me, i guess i’m too used to the numerous zeros and the paycheck in hundreds of thousands. But i guess it will turn out OK.
Interesting comment, rox. When I first came to Slovenia the euro still hadn’t been unleased, and I was really struck by what you noted: that everyone spoke about the value of things (esp. houses and other high-value goods) in deutschmarks. It was good for me, because I had (and have) a much better sense of the value of DMs than tolars. Even today, when I’m looking at something expensive I will mentally convert tolars -> deutschmarks -> euros.
The European Commission’s “Berlaymont” building is covered with a huge sign welcoming Slovenia to the Eurozone - for a brief second I almost feel an inexplicable sense of patriotic pride when I pass it by. Thankfully this passes just as fast as it comes.
@Poulette take a photo and post it somewhere
Coincidentally, someone who just got back from Brussels was telling me about that banner. So we know that Poulette isn’t imagining things due to excessive speedballing (this time). It really is there.
I wasn’t questioning Poulette’s truthfullness, i just wanna see what the stupid thing looks like.
OK, i got it.
Nicely done. Now we need a picture of Poulette’s 500-kilo stash of refined, uncut Bolivian cocaine. (My guess is that it’s in the bathtub)
Just wait…. On 1/1/07, when we enter the eurozone, the banner will be replaced by a banner saying “Mission acomplished”
But seriously: I remember how thrilled I was as a child when Tito finally made it on 5000 dinar banknote. Dinar was cool. But y’all forgot those “neither-dinar-neither-tolar” banknotes, we were using before “real” tolar was introduced. I still have a bunch of those stashed in a sock somewhere.
@pengovsky Yeah, sure i remember those, one could print them out with a medium-range color copy machine.
@rox:… Thus contributing to the soaring budget deficit at the time
at pengovsky: MM actually mentioned them and yes "transitional tolars" still have their value at the Bank of Slovenia. www.bsi.si/bankovci-in-kovanci.asp?MapaId=219 (see the note at the end of the list)
@cija: I didn’t know that! In the immortal words of Daffy Duck: I’m rich! I’m socially secured! I’m comfortably well off!!!
Actually, don’t know about you… But i will be sad looking Tolar go.
And above all… i completely agree what rox said 
Its kindda Slovene money and sometimes i wonder why cannot we be like danes or english… And above all it is actually quite nicely d esigned money and you can say.Actually, i will miss Preseren on bank notes (i will just wonder to which sum we will now say - enga jurja - hmmm.. 1000 EUR? - its just not the same anymore)… or having a lot notes with Ivan Cankar…
Then whenever i went across the world, every was very curious what “tolar” is and is looking like. For example in India, when i mentioned exchange rate to rupees (1 rupee for 4 tolars) they all said - your country must be poor
So. The king will be dead. Long live the king
And I guess life will be easier with Euro… or better…
@ Matty : easier for sure. Better? Well, time will tell, won’t it? Here in Belgium, the prices went up a bit, even though it was agreed that wouldn’t happen. A few months into the Euro- era and all of thos promises were well and truly in the trash can, where the average consumer had always expected them to end up. Gear up for a year of Euro- growing pains, my Slovene friends (not counting all the economical pain the upcoming conversion has already inflicted in the previous years, of course ;-)). Anyway, I’ll be hanging on to my remaining Tolars now for sure. The coins might make me a nice gipsy necklace :-D…
Well, things come and go. I guess the post by pujs carries more weight than I thought at first. Sure, tolar was (well, still is) a good, stable currency. And the banknotes looked nice as well. But I look at it like one looks at one first car (or computer, or apartament,…). We’ll have nothing but good memories. I also plan to keep a specimen of every denomination, just for old times sake (it’ll cost me exactly 16.968 SIT or 70.81 EUR). But euro is here. I’m sure it’ll serve us well, if we treat it kindly. Just the way we treated tolar.
Test
I’d love to get my hands on a 50-billion dinar note one day.
Rox: I’ve been meaning to do so and post on my blog, but I always forget to take my camera to work (the thought of looking like one of those dorky tourists who take pictures of the EU builidngs also repels me somewhat, I have to admit). BTW, your link doesn’t work. Michael: Bolivia’s finest, let it be said. Sadly, it’s also the reason why I haven’t showered in months.
This should simplify my life in the future, although I will miss the 1000 SIT note.. but I won’t have to convert everything into USD anymore (200 SIT -> 1 USD! Easy as pie).
Michael, you can satisfy your desire right… …here: www.bolha.com/oglas1388486
@poulette: Ah, that’s the big smelly cloud they coming from the West they announced in the news.
@converting currencies: When I came to Austria the Schilling was still in place. When the Euro was introduced it was easy for me: 1 Euro = 2 DM. For the Austrians it is 1 Euro ~ 14 Schilling. 14 Schilling used to be 2 DM which now is 1 Euro. This summer in Croatia we got totally mixed up. Miss Austria tends to convert foreign currencies still into Austrian Schilling, not into Euro. And for me Bosnia was interesting, because after the Euro they stopped using the DM, but introduced the convertible mark, which is used like the DM. While I went like “Oh, this is just 3 Marks”, Miss Austria started calculating in Schilling. In general converting everything is totally useless. Better work with the new currency as fast and as much as you can to get used to it.
Lola’s father looks disturbingly like agent Smith on this picture…
Here’s what freepers make of Slovenia and Euro. Suppose the starting few comments could easily be chalked up into the “Eternal Slovenia/Slovakia mix up” category… Or maybe the “Don’t know/don’t give a damn, but I’ve got a pretty good stereotipisation going on here in case anyone’s interested” category. Oh yeah, the blatant Michael endorsement, that’s not me, if anyone was wondering. (wouldn’t wanna be part of that forum for the world…
Arriving to Sweden from Germany, staying there and after that in Denmark for some time, I couldn’t help but wish that Euro was used everywhere. You do learn to convert Swedish Crowns to Euro after some time (and, yes, it hurts, cause you’re then able to find out the real prices) and then you go to Denmark and have to do it their way again… After some initial fidgeting, I simply drew a largish amount of money from my account and I am still hoping it won’t cut a manhole through my finances (I haven’t had the heart to calculate it’s worth in Euro yet).
So I am (proudly) looking forward to Euro in Slovenia, too. Glad you’re back