On 5 September 2017, as Uzbekistan liberalised its official exchange-rate system, people queued at a National Bank branch in Tashkent to exchange currency. Before the reform, access to foreign currency through official channels was tightly restricted and the official and informal rates diverged sharply.
What distinguishes this line is that an ordinary exchange of banknotes became the place where citizens first encountered a national change in monetary policy. The order at the bank counter marked a boundary between administrative control and a market exchange rate.