What's a tenge?

The tenge is the official currency of Kazakhstan. It's illegal for merchants to accept payment in foreign currencies, although many do. The current exchange rate of tenge to dollars is about 142. It's been stable over the past three or four months, although it was a bit stronger when I arrived last August (about 128 or so). The tenge is a free-floating, convertible currency, unlike some other countries' tender in the region, which are fixed at a certain exchange rate by the government, giving rise to "black market" exchanges that pay much lower market rates for foreign currencies.

NOTE: As of this writing, the tenge has fallen to about 153, but is still very stable (relatively speaking).

UPDATE: The tenge strengthened to a high around 121 during 2006, but fell back during the first month of 2007, and now hovers around 126-127.