Last week I was posting about the best places to work from remotely, presented a list of 111 countries, on which Romania was third. I was happy to see it as usually my country is first on most of the lists for all the wrong reasons. There were a few Hiveans that must have envied me for living in such a country, especially after seeing their country at the end of the list.
Here we are today, after only 10 days, there's a war in the next country, there's a humanitarian crises in Europe as tens of thousands of refugees are coming in countries that have borders with Ukraine.
A huge part of Europe being dependent of Russian gas, it was obvious from the very beginning that this war is going to have long term economical consequences. Romania is not a wealthy country, there has been street protests this winter due to the overcharged gas and electricity bills and all this has happened before we knew there will be a war.
In one of my posts I have mentioned that the EURO rate has been kept at a certain level, while the price of food and services has been rising. It was obvious that at some point the EURO/RON rate is going to explode and yesterday instead of 4.999RON/EURO, the rate was 5.11 and 5.12. This is just the beginning as in a couple of weeks we're going to see new ATH's.
I went to the bakery to buy the usual, daily dose of bread and a surprise was waiting for me there too. These products were 0.2RON more expensive today, compared to yesterday, including any type of bread. What was 2RON yesterday is nor 2.2RON and 1.5RON became 1.7RON this morning. It is an interesting approach as the prices have not been increased applying the same percentage as usually happens. Instead each product's price has been increased with the same amount. At the end of the day what matters is that everything is more expensive than it was last week.
This is just the beginning as there's more to come. A part of the government resources has been allocated to hosting refugees and the defense budget has been expanded.
The real effects will be visible in a couple of months, if the war can be stopped. If not, then ...
France has announced that it will relocate a battalion of 500 troops to Romania, as part of NATO forces, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the head of the French army staff, General Thierry Burkhard, announced on Friday evening. source
A part landed last night as you can see on the photo above.
Refugees are coming day and night, unfortunately the weather has turned cold again, down south, at the Isaccea border has been snowing and up north as well.
At the time of writing it is shelling in Kiev, which leaves me speechless. Knowing we have friends trying to stay alive for another day and there's nothing we can do is horrible.
Warning For The Hive Community
The whole world knows what's going on in Ukraine and because we have the most amazing community, we help those in need. There are quite a few users based in Ukraine, some right in Kiev and Kharkiv, the most dangerous points right now, literally fighting to stay alive. We're waiting every day to hear something from them, to know they are alive. You must have seen their posts are voted massively as that's the least we can do for them. When this madness is over, they will need support to rebuild their lives as it won't be easy.
Unfortunately not everyone is like the majority of us. There are users trying to exploit the situation, trying to convince others that they are in Ukraine, hoping people would vote their posts. We kind of know who is from Ukraine, if not, we know who to ask, so let's make sure we don't reward fraudsters.
