I don't blame you on the exchange end when buying products, I would have done the same. My previous comments were geared toward the overall Putin strategy in terms of America, which in my opinion is very adverse.
Never take the euro,people still don't know what a euro looks like, and as the USD is in most..... the currency of choice? even in Tehran I had trouble changing 50 euro notes, but everybody changed USD.even offering to change more. ( the main problem is that everything is done with cash, and when you have to take 2 suitcases of money to buy a car?) Example..Jugoslavia had a (wait for it) 500,000,000,000 Dinara ( PET STOTINA MILLJARDI DINARA )note that had a value of $3 (three) USD and they still had coins, there a suitcase had more value than the money inside it.