The credit-card company docked his wages to pay off the first, and she is still battling over the second.
It is a practice in which employers give high-interest loans to workers, who then work at low wages to pay off the debt.
The ruins are a result of the war that has been waged off and on since 1988 between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountain enclave of spectacular beauty whose population has been heavily Armenian for the last century but which lies within the territory of rival Azerbaijan.
Ukraine's economic performance was sluggish, with most revenue being used to pay off wage arrears amounting to $200 million in the state sector alone.
This week the government admitted it would have trouble finding the $1.5 billion needed to pay off wage arrears to public-sector employees by the end of the year.
The inflation rate, judging by December's figures, may rise to 100%, or even higher if the government decides to pay off wage arrears by printing money.
Much of the money made by the state firms is being soaked up by payments for welfare functions, including the wages of laid-off workers.
After Friday's figures came out, some news accounts suggested that the moment when wages take off might be upon us.
As wages level off, medals and awards that raise status without costing hard currency might substitute as compensation, as practiced in the Soviet period, beginning principally in the 1930s, when such status symbols, rather than salaries, measured accomplishment.
