500 Soviet Ruble #440

Front

Spasskaya Tower (Saviour's Tower) of the Moscow Kremlin, the most famous of the Kremlin's twenty towers, built in 1491 by Italian architect Pietro Antonio Solari and topped with the iconic star in the Soviet era. The tower houses the main clock of Russia and serves as the main entrance to Red Square; it became the principal symbol of Soviet state power throughout the 20th century.

Back

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), leader of the October Revolution of 1917, and first head of the Soviet state. Lenin established the world's first socialist state and remains the most frequently depicted figure on Soviet currency. The State Emblem of the USSR appears at upper right, featuring the hammer and sickle surrounded by wheat sheaves.

History

This note belongs to the final series issued by the State Bank of the USSR in 1991, the year of the Soviet Union's dissolution. The 1991 series was issued during the economic turmoil preceding the USSR's collapse in December 1991. Following the dissolution, this currency remained in circulation in the newly independent Russian Federation until it was replaced by new Russian banknotes in 1993 during currency reform. The pairing of Lenin's portrait with Kremlin imagery was standard iconography throughout Soviet monetary history. The inscription on the front reads '500 ПЯТЬСОТ РУБЛЕЙ' (500 Five Hundred Rubles) and the text states that counterfeiting of State Bank notes is punishable by law. Serial number АИ 2211593 suggests a relatively late print run within the series. This denomination and series are well-documented as Pick P-246a.