100R works out at around £2.20. It should probably be around 50R, but a 100R note is the only denomination we can be sure to have handy without lengthy negotiations over splitting notes between them, and subsequent wars over who gets to 'look after it' without charging their brother interest for holding onto his hard-earned cash.
This being Russia, of course, the opportunities to spend their pocket money on a weekly basis are quite low; 100R here will buy you a couple of litres of milk (not high on their list of priorities, funnily enough), or a big handful of sweeties (not high on mine), but not much else as the comics they might buy back home are all in Russian, and the toys etc all kick in somewhere around the 200R mark.
So my sons are beginning to understand the value of saving their earnings until they have enough to buy their hearts' desires. This morning, for example, at the supermarket they both decided what they wanted to buy - and were both around 9 weeks pocket money short. I explained this to them and they got the concept, lowering their expectations until they were only a couple of weeks shy of the toy they wanted. Great, I thought. They're learning. And I get two more weeks of table-laying and bed-making out of the deal too. Result!
Some children learn more quickly than others, of course. Which I realised after we got back here and I overheard Boy #2 telling a friend who had dropped by;
"Yes, you can play with that. It'll cost you 200 roubles..."
