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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Provisional Government: 1,000 Rubles (1917)

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Denomination: 1,000 Rubles
Year of First Issue: 1917 Governing Body: Provisional Government
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The 1,000 Ruble banknote introduced by the Provisional Government in 1917 was the first time that the 1,000 Ruble denomination was offered in Russia by a governing body as legal tender. However, the introduction of this large denomination signaled dangerous inflation that would prove to plague Russia all the way until the late 1920s, far after the collapse of the Provisional Government. The most intriguing features on the banknote is the large image of the Duma building, the seat of power of the Provisional Government.
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The second interesting feature of the 1,000 Ruble banknote is the fact that it features 2 swastikas on the front of the banknote. This feature is similar to the 250 Ruble banknote of 1917, which featured 5 swastikas rather than 2. On the front side, a faint swastika can be seen behind each of the "1000" numbers in the center sides of the front. The back, however, does not have any swastikas. The swastika was put on the banknote as a sign of good luck, and carried over to the Soviet 5,000 Ruble and Soviet 10,000 Ruble banknotes, discussed in a different section of the site. The swastika was not a symbol of the Nazis until the 1930s, and no Nazi influence existed outside of Germany before the 1930s, so the placement of swastikas on the Russian Provisional banknotes is not connected to Nazi Germany (which did not exist yet) in any way.
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