Photo: Ilya Repin In the context of the coronavirus pandemic last year, Russia began spending money from the National Welfare Fund to cover the budget deficit — the country's reserve has not been used for such purposes since 2017. Starting from the first tranche in August and to December, 290 billion rubles were allocated to the treasury. However, the Russian National Wealth Fund not only “did not lose weight”, but also increased its volume by 74%. Chinese yuan and Japanese yen appeared in it for the first time in the fund's existence, while the US currency and the euro became less. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.