Venezuelan tickets still seek value converted into portfolios and other crafts
Entre los puestos del Mercado de Las Pulgas de Usaquén, Bogotá, hay un colombiano que se considera famoso. Con orgullo, menciona medios de comunicación locales y extranjeros en los que ha salido como entrevistado. Se ha dado a conocer por vender carteras y piezas decorativas hechas con billetes de bolívares venezolanos.
A butterfly made with ballots of 20 and 1,000 bolivars, Luis Orlando Ortega sells it to 10,000 Colombian pesos, which, at the current dollar rate in Colombia, is equivalent to 2.5 dollars. Un búho lo ofrece a 20,000 pesos colombianos, igual a 5 dollars.
The exchange rate in Venezuela was quoted yesterday in 4.81 bolivars per dollar in the parallel market, according to the Dollar Today portal.The change of dollars in Cúcuta, a Colombian city near the border with Venezuela, was 5.57 bolivars.
Although the figures appear stable, the Venezuelan currency has suffered a continuous devaluation due to hyperinflation.To face it, the country has taken 14 zeros to its currency in the last 14 years as a measure of monetary reconversion that has not been expected.
The Government of Nicolás Maduro has attributed hyperinflation to causes motivated from abroad to destabilize its administration.
The most recent digit suppression became effective on October 1, 2021, when a monetary scale began to be applied that eliminated six zeros to the national currency, which was renamed Bolívar Digital.
Three years before, in 2018, another conversion was made that eliminated another five zeros to La Moneda, which was called Bolívar Soberan.
By January 2008, the so -called Bolívar Fuerte began to circulate, created in 2007, which meant the elimination of three other zeros.
Although the country has its own currency, the Venezuelan economy is currently very dollarized - although not officially - and the bolivar is scarce.Because of this, Ortega can no longer easily access the tickets he uses as raw material to make the figures through the Erange.
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Depending on its size, 16 or 40 tickets are needed to make a wallet;For purses between 50 or 60.A United States Flag Ortega made it with 1,300 tickets.Ballots are cut into pieces and then assemble the structure.
"In times of abundance and bonanza that was during inflation, the ticket was shot by the trash, no now not," says Ortega, who emigrated to Venezuela with 9 years, where he prepared as a textile designer and musician.There he lived for 50 years until the economic crisis forced him to return to his country 7 years ago.
"Following the dollar entrance (in Venezuela), the exchange houses eliminated everything called bolivars, and now you have to look for them inside the border, but what happens?, Which in Venezuela is punished," he says.
"(Yes) you are grabbed by a batch of bills inside the Venezuelan border, apart from the fact that they put it imprisoned, they take it away, then you have to pay, so it has become more scarce and even more expensive".
Despite the shortage, Ortega indicates that he has accumulated tickets to be able to make pieces during the next six months.Point out some boxes behind her back where she keeps them.Your concern is not having ballots with the colors that you want to work on the pieces, which now makes smaller to save the raw material.
As Ortega, Venezuelans have also proliferated with the elaboration of objects with bolivars, such as cobras, turtles and swans.It was from 2018 when this technique became more noticeable, and the novelty began to be disseminated by the press and Ortega became "famous".
Its intention is to give value to ballots that end as decorative objects in the houses and offices of tourists and local.
Editor of Economics and Journalism Teacher.He has specialized in research, multimedia and data journalism.