Ukrainian monetary unit “hryvnia” lost half of its value just in one year. Last July the exchange rate to US Dollar was $1 to 5ua, now it's $1 to 8.5ua and climbing. This is down from earlier this year when it was $1 to 10ua.

This is, of course, old news for Ukrainians as they had to deal with inflation and repossessed property since November when the banks demanded the debtors to pay back according to the new dollar rate, doubling the payments. Many loans are given in the sum of US currency.  Some people are suing the banks in attempts to hold them to the original agreement and the exchange rate of the time the agreement was singed.

Strangely, this story was not popular in the US financial news.

So what happened?

Well, it's hard to tell for sure. Many people believe that some very clever forces had used the "crisis in US" to spike up the price of US dollar and make considerable profits on the currency exchange market. Others blame the president.

A presidential candidate, Yulia Tymoshenko, blames the fall of hryvnia on "corruptive" transactions by Ukrainian National Bank.

But while this matter is being under investigation, one thing is clear.

If your money is in US dollars, you would feel pretty comfortable in Ukraine. Not so much in Europe where US dollar is still worth only 50 euro cents.