A Lesson in Honesty, But So Much More

The other day on the way back from the barn where we were visiting Dad, the girls and I stopped to pick some wild flowers, since most of the ones by our house have since been mowed. In the midst of the plants, I found a 100 Ruble bill, which roughly equates to $3.21USD. No, it isn't very much money by some standards, but I thought it was probably one of the worker's lunch money and it would be a good opportunity to teach the girls about honesty. I showed the girls the bill, and helped them reason through the situation. "Look what I found, girls. I wonder whose money this is. Someone is probably feeling sad because they lost their money. This isn't our money. We should try to find out whose money this is." And so on.

We decided to turn it into the farm office which was close by. Shane happened to meet back up with us and we all walked to the office. We turned it into the secretary, Tatiana, who looked at it a little confused, and promptly called our interpreter. After some discussion back and forth on the phone, she and the other office personnel started laughing. Now I was a little confused. At the end of the conversation we came to the conclusion that it was fake Russian money--play money like Monopoly or something. We all had a good laugh and left. Rain was ecstatic because now she could keep the money.

As I was thinking about the incident later, I thought how much better it was to be honest and try to return it, only to look a little foolish, rather than to have thought it was too trivial of an amount to trifle with returning, put in my wallet, and then use it at the grocery store. The legal repurcussions from that scenario might not have been as laughable. An American trying to use counterfeit money at a Russian grocery store--probably would have ended with more serious consequences. At the very least, I would have had very hard time explaining to the cashier that I had no idea it was fake money. I probably would have been too mortified to shop at that particular store again. So, bottom line, honesty saved me from a very bad situation.

Anyone care to venture a guess on which is the real bill?


Exhibit A

 

Exhibit B

 Here are some front and back shots of the real and fake bills next to each other. The differences become more apparent. For example, the size of the fake bill is slightly smaller. Obviously you can't feel the difference on the screen, but the fake bill was also more paper-y, rather than having that cloth/fabric feel of real money. Also the fake bill has little red letters on the bottom of one side of the bill. The little shiny security strip that runs vertically was only black ink on the fake bill. Also the words are slightly different at the bottom. The real one, the bottom one in this picture says: сто рублей, which means 100 rubles. The fake one, the top one, I think says сто дублей. So, one character difference on that line. The top right line says: БИЛЕТ БАНКА ПРИКОЛОВ, which Google tells me translates to "Bank Account fun" while the correct bill reads: БИЛЕТ БАНКА РОССИИ, which Google translates as "Russia Bank Account". Other than that, there aren't many more differences and it definitely fooled us.

Counterfeit bill is on the bottom

Counterfeit bill is on the top

Answer: Exhibit B is the real deal.

I'm thankful I was trying to teach my girls to be honest.