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A lot of paper work is required to sort out the Ruble replacement.

Windfalls should not be expected.

The State Budget has allocated 1 billion drams, about $2.2 million, for the purpose. That’s approximately one-40th of the amount – some $83 million – needed.

About 2,500 citizens have registered for compensation so far.

Because there is not enough money to go around, priority will be given to those who, because of poverty, are already receiving state.

Overall, 8.2 billion rubles – “frozen in June, 1993 – are at stake, involving approximately 110,000 account holders.

The state’s compensation will issue 84,000 drams ($186) for a loss of 1,000 Soviet rubles; about 143,000 drams ($317) for up to 3,000 rubles; 176,400 drams ($391) for up to 5,000 rubles; and 216,400 drams ($480) for up to 10,000 rubles.

It is unknown how many of the bank customers will apply. What is clear, though, is that today’s poor were not born poor.

The size of the deposits and number of checkbooks presented by them today already reveals that a billion drams will not be sufficient for compensating even the deposits of people receiving social benefits.

A welfare recipient in Gyumri had more than a million Soviet rubles in his savings account. News about him spread nationwide when the office computer malfunctioned because it was not programmed to understand a seven-digit figure. Compensating his frozen million will require a sum equal to 4,176,000 dram ($9,300).

A sum exceeding 10,000 Soviet rubles is multiplied by four, converted to drams, and is added to the fixed sum of 216,400 drams ($480).

Faded checkbooks are the only proof for many needy people today that once they could afford to save six-digit sums.

“We had cases when people receiving social benefits now presented checkbooks for 100,000 or 150,000 rubles and we register them. We check if we have doubts of forgery, but we haven’t had so far,” chief specialist of the Social Service of Yerevan’s Kentron community Hayarpi Misakyan says, adding that some present as many as 20 different accounts.

According to Misakyan, the Social Agency of the Kentron community has registered 600 citizens since April 12 who have presented about 4,000 checkbooks. “On the average, every person presents five to seven Soviet checkbooks,” he says.

Arshaluys Gabrielyan, 80, who this week went to the Social Agency with the checkbook of her late husband, learned that only 50 percent of the 8,000 rubles on the checkbook will be compensated to her, as to the wife of the checkbook holder.

But after a 13-year wait this news does not sadden her.

“We saved this sum together with my husband for our funerals, as we did not have anyone in this world anymore,” she said. “My husband died 12 years ago. Now they will not give me enough money for a funeral. But it will be good if they give me money at least for a TV set so that I don’t go mad from loneliness inside four walls. I hope they don’t drag it out; I am afraid I will not live that long . . .”