``It has no gender,'' a spokesman for the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (Micex) said when asked which of the Russian language's three genders -- masculine, feminine or neuter -- should be used in speaking about Europe's new-born euro.

Unfortunately, though, for Russians who have to speak or write about the currency rather than simply trade it, it has to have one. The problem is, no one seems yet to know which.

While the answer is obvious in English, where only people are normally regarded as anything other than neuter, the general consensus among EU languages like German and French is that the euro is a boy -- it is ``der euro'' and ``un euro.''

In its Russian incarnation -- the ``yevro'' -- looks like a neuter word because it ends in ``o''.

Yet local media, clearly baffled by the new foreign arrival, seem to have decided it is definitely not neuter -- but have been swinging bothways on which of the other two it should be.

The central bank, which began quoting an official rouble-euro rate when business resumed on Tuesday after the new year holiday, was cautious about which was politically correct.

``There is no official decision,'' a spokesman said.