Around 1990 I lived in Moscow with my family. My mother decided to buy a new refrigerator for 5000 rubles (a lot of money back then and the average salary was about 200 rubles) and pay for it monthly for three years.

At some point high inflation took place in Russia. The prices and salaries began to grow. People who had large amounts of money in the bank were losing their wealth because their money was losing its value. As time passed by, the prices and salaries eventually grew to be six digit numbers.

The refrigerator for which my mother was supposed to pay for three years, she bought it with one salary half a year later since the money lost its real value and the 5000 rubles, which seemed a lot at one point, was worth almost nothing. At some point the government decided to fix the inflation problem by compensating the loss to the people whose money lost value in the banks. The banks were supposed to calculate 40% of the total money that were stored in the bank then convert it from present value (before inflation) to future value (after inflation). Since the whole process look a while, by the time everything was converted, the calculated total was worth very little again because inflation was high and prices and salaries kept growing so the real value of money kept falling. People who had large amounts of money in their savings account lost most of it. Those who owed, repaid their debts very quickly