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By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

An exchange rate of 100 rubles to the dollar is an important, symbolic threshold for Russians.

It brings with it fears of financial instability and memories of economic collapse. So if the ruble actually reaches three figures, wallets will tighten and alarm bells will ring.

“Panic attack in the Russian foreign exchange market,” headlined Rossiskaya Gazeta after the ruble fell to 114 against the dollar yesterday.

According to the Kommersant daily, the currency news resembled “a war report.” It advises readers to “buckle up your rubles.”

After falling to its lowest level against the dollar since March 2022, the ruble has now lost a third of its value since August.

This time two years ago it hovered around the 60 mark. Fifteen years ago there were only 30.

But these are of course completely different times. The latest decline came after the US imposed sanctions on Gazprombank, Russia’s third-largest lender. It plays a key role in processing energy payments and was one of the few Russian banks not under sanctions. The new measures, on the other hand, triggered panic buying on the foreign exchange market.

“The ruble has lost its brakes,” state-run tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets declared, quoting a financial analyst who predicted the dollar could reach 120 by the end of December.

The obsession with the exchange rate is a historical hangover. During the Soviet era, only the elite were allowed to own foreign currency and this meant higher standards of living, such as vacations abroad and luxury imports at home.

During the chaos and hyperinflation of the 1990s, those without hard currency saw much of their savings wiped out with the devaluation of the ruble.

So if the ruble slips so much, it raises fears that inflation will skyrocket as imports become more expensive.

When the ruble fell below 100 last August, the central bank was forced to raise the key interest rate by 3.5 percentage points to 12%. Just over a year later, that rate is now at 21%, the highest level since 2003. Will it continue to rise?

Apparently not at the moment. Instead, the central bank has decided to stop buying foreign currencies in the hope that this will stabilize markets.

Not that the government is worried, quite the opposite it seems. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov commented on the exchange rate earlier this week, saying the weak ruble was “very, very favorable” for exporters.

Some commentators responded to the comments, believing they showed that the Kremlin would like to keep the ruble where it is.

But with inflation already at around 8%, it is unlikely that ordinary Russians share this opinion.