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During the 1990s economic crisis, Russian teachers were paid with Vodka bottles. Using vodka instead of cash made sense when actual currency was almost worthless. As the USSR collapsed and hyperinflation soared, Russians referred to rubles as “wooden” money. In 1998, authorities in one Siberian district gave 8,000 school teachers 15 bottles apiece, in lieu of wages. The initial proposal, according to a UPI report, had been toilet paper and coffins, but vodka is favored as the only thing that could be freely sold or exchanged for bread and other food.