Shopping sprees and loans – How Turks experience hyperinflation

Istanbul, Ankara Simit is a Turkish national dish. You can get the sesame ring on every street corner, without anything, with butter, with cheese or together with the national drink tea. For years, the kringel cost one lira.

The price has now risen to five lira. On average. A salesman at the international airport recently showed that there is another way. He charged 85 lira for the snack. That’s 17 times higher than elsewhere – and there are still people who pay for it.

Turkey is experiencing hyperinflation. According to the official statistics institute Tüik, the annual rate of inflation is currently 80 percent, but that is an extremely optimistic calculation.

The Istanbul Chamber of Commerce comes to 99.9 percent for the city on the Bosphorus, other inflation researchers speak of 181 percent. That would be an annual tripling of prices.