MOSCOW - As of January 28, the Bank of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves totaled USD128.3bn, coming 8 percent, or USD9.6bn, up within a week - the highest-ever weekly growth rate. During the period of January 7 to 21, the reserves declined by a total of USD5.9bn, now recovering twice as much.

Meanwhile, the origin of the huge increase in the reserves in the week ending January 28 is still a mystery. Even assuming that the Bank of Russia was purchasing US dollars at MICEX in exclusive amounts, the acquisition will never measure up almost USD10bn a week. Anyway, such a great demand for the US currency would induce an equivalent upsurge in the dollar to ruble exchange rate, which was not the case. The only assumption left is that in the week ending January 28, the Bank of Russia was purchasing a huge amount of US dollars directly from largest commercial banks. A sharp cutback in the supply of the US currency on the part of MICEX special trading sessions backs the assumption.