Not “gold” or “franc”, but the lats. On 3 August 1922, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the “Regulations on Money”: Latvia’s monetary unit would be the lats, divided into 100 santīms, and one lats was tied to 0.2903226 grams of pure gold. Behind that dry formula stood a very practical conversion – 50 Latvian rubles for one lats. Among the rejected name pairs was the rather fairy-tale-like “Pūķis” and “Rūķis” – “Dragon” and “Gnome.”

After the War of Independence, Latvia’s monetary circulation still carried the clutter left by war and revolution, but in 1921–1922 the ruble was stabilized enough to move to a new monetary system. A few months later the Bank of Latvia was founded, and the lats began to exist not only in regulations but also in people’s wallets.