USSR Rouble-I

1 Rouble: Frederick Engels

Frederick Engels or Friedrich Engels was the foremost propounder of Socialism, along with Karl Marx. USSR being a known socialist country, it is little wonder that USSR has released commemoratives on these two personalities.

Friedrich Engels, the eldest son of a successful German industrialist, was born in Barmen on 28th November 1820. As a young man his father sent him to England to help manage his cotton-factory in Manchester. Engels was shocked by the poverty in the city and began writing an account that was published as Condition of the Working Class in England (1844). He also made friends with the leaders of the Chartist movement in Britain.
In 1844 Engels began contributing to a radical journal called Franco-German Annals that was being edited by Karl Marx in Paris. Later that year Engels met Marx and the two men became close friends. Engels shared Marx's views on capitalism and after their first meeting he wrote that there was virtually "complete agreement in all theoretical fields". Marx and Engels decided to work together. It was a good partnership, whereas Marx was at his best when dealing with difficult abstract concepts, Engels had the ability to write for a mass audience.
While working on their first article together, The Holy Family, the Prussian authorities put pressure on the French government to expel Karl Marx from the country. On 25th January 1845, Marx received an order deporting him from France. Marx and Engels decided to move to Belgium, a country that permitted greater freedom of expression than any other European state.
Friedrich Engels helped to financially support Marx and his family. Engels gave Marx the royalties of his book, Condition of the Working Class in England and arranged for other sympathizers to make donations. This enabled Marx the time to study and develop his economic and political theories.
In July 1845 Engels took Karl Marx to England. They spent most of the time consulting books in Manchester Library. During their six weeks in England, Engels introduced Marx to several of the Chartist leaders including George Julian Harney.
Engels and Marx returned to Brussels and in January 1846 they set up a Communist Correspondence Committee. The plan was to try and link together socialist leaders living in different parts of Europe. Influenced by Marx's ideas, socialists in England held a conference in London where they formed a new organisation called the Communist League. Engels attended as a delegate and took part in developing a strategy of action.
Engels returned to England in December 1847 where he attended a meeting of the Communist League' Central Committee in London. At the meeting it was decided that the aims of the organisation was "the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the domination of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society based on class antagonisms, and the establishment of a new society without classes and without private property".
Engels and Marx began writing a pamphlet together. Based on a first draft produced by Engels called the Principles of Communism, Marx finished the 12,000 word pamphlet in six weeks. Unlike most of Marx's work, it was an accessible account of communist ideology. Written for a mass audience, The Communist Manifesto summarised the forthcoming revolution and the nature of the communist society that would be established by the proletariat.
The Communist Manifesto begins with the assertion, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." Marx and Engels argued that if you are to understand human history you must not see it as the story of great individuals or the conflict between states. Instead, you must see it as the story of social classes and their struggles with each other. Marx and Engels explained that social classes had changed over time but in the 19th century the most important classes were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. By the term bourgeoisie Marx and Engels meant the owners of the factories and the raw materials which are processed in them. The proletariat, on the other hand, own very little and are forced to sell their labour to the capitalists.
Marx and Engels believed that these two classes are not merely different from each other, but also have different interests. They went on to argue that the conflict between these two classes would eventually lead to revolution and the triumph of the proletariat. With the disappearance of the bourgeoisie as a class, there would no longer be a class society. As Engels later wrote, "The state is not abolished, it withers away."
The The Communist Manifesto was published in February, 1848. The following month, the government expelled Engels and Marx from Belgium. Marx and Engels visited Paris before moving to Cologne where they founded a radical newspaper, New Rhenish Gazette. The men hoped to use the newspaper to encourage the revolutionary atmosphere that they had witnessed in Paris.
Engels helped form an organisation called the Rhineland Democrats. On 25th September, 1848, several of the leaders of the group were arrested. Engels managed to escape but was forced to leave the country. Karl Marx continued to publish the New Rhenish Gazette until he was expelled in May, 1849.
Engels and Marx now moved to London. The Prussian authorities applied pressure on the British government to expel the two men but the Prime Minister, John Russell, held liberal views on freedom of expression and refused. With only the money that Engels could raise, the Marx family lived in extreme poverty.
In order to help supply Karl Marx with an income, Engels returned to work for his father in Germany. The two kept in constant contact and over the next twenty years they wrote to each other on average once every two days. Friedrich Engels sent postal orders or £1 or £5 notes, cut in half and sent in separate envelopes. In this way the Marx family was able to survive.
Other books published by Engels include The Peasant War in Germany (1850), Anti-Dühring (1878) and the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) .
Karl Marx died in London in March, 1883. Engels devoted the rest of his life to editing and translating Marx's writings. This included the second volume of Das Kapital (1885). Engels then used Marx's notes to write the third volume that was published in 1894.
Friedrich Engels died in London on 5th August 1895.

1 Rouble: M.Y.Lermontov

Mikhail Lermontov(1814-1841) was born in Moscow. His mother, Maria Mikhailovna Lermontova, an heiress to rich estates, belonged to the prominent Stolypin family. She died of consumption in 1817. Yuri Petrovich Lermontov, his father, was a poor army officer. After the death of Maria Mihkailovna, he left his son's upbringing to Yelizaveta Alexeyevna Arsenyeva, his wealthy grandmother. In the new home Mikhail became the subject of family disputes between his grandmother and father, who was not allowed to participate in the upbringing. Lermontov received an extensive education at home, but it included doubtful aspects: in his childhood he was dressed in a girl's frock to act as a model for a painter.

Lermontov studied ethics, politics, and literature, but was expelled in 1832 for disciplinary reasons. He then went to St. Petersburg and graduated from the cadet school in 1834 with the lowest officer's rank of cornet. He was stationed in the same town with a Hussar regiment of the Imperial Guards.

From his position in the Hussars and with his early devotion to writing, Lermontov observed the social life of the wealthy. By 1832 he had already written two hundred lyric poems, ten long poems and three plays. His first verse narrative,KHADZHI ABREK, appeared in 1835. MASKARAD (1836), considered Lermontov's best drama, centers around a bracelet, mistaken identities, and jealousy. At the end a faithful wife is poisoned with ice cream by her husband. The play was first produced by V.E. Meyerhold in St. Petersburg on the eve of the Revolution in 1917. Later Lermontov's melodrama inspired Aram Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite (1944).

In 1837 Lermontov gained wider recognition as a writer. After Alexandr Pushkin was killed in a duel, he published an elegy, SMERT POETA. In it he finds, behind the blind tool of destiny, arrogant descendants "of fathers famed for their base infamies / Who, with a slavish heel, have spurned the remnants / Of nobler but less favoured families!" And Lermontov continues prophetically: "Before this seat your slanders will not sway / That Judge both just and good... / Nor all your black blood serve to wash away / The poet's righteous blood." The poem was enthusiastically received in liberal circles, but annoyed the autocratic Tsar Nicholas I. Lermontov was arrested and exiled to the Caucasus, where he with several of the members of the Decembrist anti-Nicholas I revolt.

Due to the influence of his grandmother, Lermontov was permitted to return to Petersburg. However, Lermontov's attitude toward contemporary state of affairs did not become less critical. "There was something ominous and tragic in Lermontov's appearance," said Ivan Turgenev later, "his swarthy face and large, motionless dark eyes excluded a sort of somer and evil strength, a sort of pensive scornfulness and passion." . . . . The words, "His eyes did not laugh when he laughed," from A Hero of Our Time, etc., could really have been applied to himself."
A Hero of Our Time has been characterized as the first Russian novel of psychological realism. It consists of five separate stories linked by a common hero, Grigorii Pechorin, who is young, intelligent and feels his life empty. In the foreword Lermontov writes: "A Hero of Our Time, my dear sirs, is indeed a portrait, but not of one man; it is a portrait built up of all our generation's vices in full bloom." The book involves three narrative levels, which do not follow chronological order. The first tale, 'Bela,' introduces an unnamed narrator. He tells a story, in which Pechorin steals a Circassian princess, Bela. She loves Pechorin, who after some time starts to spent his time on hunting trips. Finally she is murdered by a vengeful Circassian. In 'Maksim Maksimych' the narrator acquires Pechorin's papers. Pechorin starts his journey to Persia, tells that "I doubt whether I shall return, nor is there any reason why I should." He dies upon his return. In 'Taman' Pechorin is nearly drowned in a wretched provincial town. He has witnessed at night strange doings of local smugglers and a young girl, working for them, tries to kill him in a boat. Pechorin manages to hurl the girl into the sea. In 'Princess Mary' Pechorin asks "why it is that I so persistently seek to win the love of a young girl whom I do not wish to seduce and whom I shall never marry. Why this feminine coquetery? Vera loves me better than Princess Mary ever will. Were she an unconquerable beauty, the difficulty of the undertaking might serve as an inducement..." Pechorin has no desire to marry the Princess. In a duel he kills Grushnitsky, who has been his friend and loves the Princess. The last story, 'Fatalist' has Pechorin speculating on whether fate or change rules human existence. One of Pechorin's friends, Vulic, had earlier played Russian roulette; he survives the game but bets are made was the pistol loaded - it was. Vulic is killed on his way to home by a drunken Cossack by a sabre. "After all this, one might think, how could one help becoming a fatalist?"

During this creative period he wrote such masterpieces as The Novice, The Cliff, Argument, Meeting, A Leaf, and Prophet. In 'Clouds' (1840) the poet contrasted the clouds "free both to come and go, free and indifferent" to his fate in exile. 'The Dream' (1841) anticipated the poet's death in that remote country: "In Daghestan, no cloud its hot sun cloaking, / A bullet in my side, I lay without / Movement or sound, my wound still fresh and smoking / And drop by drop my lifeblood trickling out."

Lermontov's best-known poem, The Demon (1842), about an angel who falls in love with a mortal woman, reflected the poet's self-image as a demonic creature. The melancholic Demon, exiled from Paradise, wanders on Earth, past hope of making peace again. At night he visits Tamara who says: "Come, swear to me to leave behind / All evil wishes from this hour". The Demon promises: "You are my holy one. This day / My power at your feet I lay. / And for your love one moment long / I'll give you all eternity." His kiss like deadly poison kills Tamara, who is saved by her martyr's pain: "She suffered, loved, laid down her life - / And Heaven opened to her love!" The Demon curses his dreams of better things - "Alone in all the universe, Abandoned, without love or hope!..." Lermontov drafted the sorrowful and self-accusing poem first at the age of 14.

Because of a duel with the French ambassador's son, Lermontov was again exiled, this time to Tenginskii Infantry Regiment on the Black Sea. The regiment was almost permanently engaged on active service and for his courage Lermontov gained the admiration of his fellow officers. However, serving in the front prevented him from writing. Pretending to be ill, Lermontov returned to the health resort of Pyatigorsk, near Moscow and joined the social life of the town. He quarrelled with Major N.S. Martynov, an old acquaintance of the family, and was killed in 1841, at the age of 27, in a duel. 

USSR Rouble-II

1 Rouble: 175 years of battle of Borodino

This is the Raevsky monument, erected in 1911 in memory of those who died in the battle of Borodino.

1 Rouble: 175 years of battle of Borodino

Both these coins are commemoratives on the battle of Borodino. The battle of Borodino was a big battle between Russia and Napoleon.
The Battle of Borodino (Russian: Бородинская битва, Borodinskaya bitva; French: Bataille de la Moskowa), fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. The French Grande Armée under EmperorNapoleon I attacked the Imperial Russian army of General Mikhail Kutuzov near the village of Borodino, west of the town of Mozhaysk, and eventually captured the main positions on the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army. About a third of Napoleon's soldiers were killed or wounded; Russian losses, while heavier, could be replaced due to Russia's large population, since Napoleon's campaign took place on Russian soil.
The battle itself ended with the disorganized Russian Army out of position and ripe for complete defeat. The state of the French forces and the lack of recognition of the state of the Russian Army led Napoleon to remain on the battlefield with his army instead of the forced pursuit that had marked other campaigns that he had conducted in the past. The battle at Borodino was a pivotal point in the campaign, as it was the last offensive action fought by Napoleon in Russia. By withdrawing, the Russian army preserved its combat strength, eventually allowing them to force Napoleon out of the country.
Poet Mikhail Lermontov romanticized the battle in his poem Borodino. Apart from these two commemorative coins, the Raevsky monument shown above has also been erected in memory of the martyrs.

USSR Rouble-III

1 Rouble: 40 years of victory in second world war

1 Rouble: 30th anniversary of world war II
This is the world war two memorial in Volgograd, Russia.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Over seventy million people, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.

The start of the war is generally held to be September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by most of the countries in the British Empire and Commonwealth, and by France. Many countries were already at war before this date, such as Nationalist China and Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and many who were not initially involved joined the war later, as a result of events such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), and the attacks on Pearl Harbor and British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia.

In 1945 the war ended in a victory for the Allies. The Soviet Union and the United States subsequently emerged as the world's superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. The United Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. The acceptance of the principle of self-determination accelerated decolonization movements in Asia and Africa, while Western Europe itself began moving toward integration.

The history of Russia in World War 2 is still being revised. In the first decades after World War 2, the historiography of Russia's part in the war in between 1939 and the end of 1941, was largely based on a combination of the strictly censored Russian state propaganda's version and of what was known outside Russia, which was then closed behind the "Iron Curtain" of the Cold War.

Eventually, two new factors provided new insights and new proofs which enable a revision that let us get much closer to the truth.

The first factor was the great and laborious work of a few open-minded 2nd generation independent researchers like Viktor Suvorov and Mark Solonin, which applied analytic approaches to the vast scope of publicly available Russian wartime and post-war documentation and literature, detected thousands of small details of information that slipped over the years through the Soviet censorship, and processed these into coherent new insights which dramatically changed our perception of what happened, both before the German invasion (Suvorov's work), and after it started (Solonin's work).

The second factor was the partial removal of the deep cover of censorship from Russian military and state archives for a period of just five years, between the collapse of the Communist Soviet Union in 1991 and the gradual recovery of conservative nationalism in the Russian government, marked, for example, by the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer. This gap of five years of relative openness was used by historians to access previously closed archives and reach documents which provide previously unavailable proofs that further support the claims of Suvorov and the other researchers. Since the mid-1990s, 'mainstream' western historiography increasingly accepts both the main claims and the main supporting facts and evidence of the pioneering work of researchers like Suvorov, and the "history as we know it" of Russia in World War 2 is being re-written.

USSR Rouble-IV

1 Rouble: Constantin Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was a true visionary and pioneer of astronautics. He theorized many aspects of human space travel and rocket propulsion decades before others, and played an important role in the development of the Soviet and Russian space programs.
He was born on September 17,1857, in the village of Ijevskoe, Ryasan Province, Russia, the son a a Polish forester who had emigrated to Russia. He was not from a rich family, but a very large one; Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had 17 brothers and sisters. At the age of 10 he lost his hearing as the result of scarlet fever. After that he couldn't attend school, and he never recieved any formal education. The knowledge and education he attained were acheived by himself. His books were his teachers, and he read every book in his father's library. Tsiolkovsky later remembered that his hearing loss influenced greatly his future life: during all his life he tried to prove to himself and to others that he was better and more clever than others, even with his disability.
In 1873-1876 Konstantin Tsiolkovsky lived in Moscow. During this time he visited the main Moscow libraries, among them the well known Pashkov House Library. It was in this fashion that he received his self-education. While in Moscow, Tsiolkovsky was tutored by the eccentric and brilliant Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorovitch Fedorov, who was working in a Moscow library at the time. Fedorov was a leading proponent of Russian Cosmism, and gave Tsiolkovsky a place to work in the library. In many ways, he took the place of the university lecturers that Tsiolkovsky never had access to. At the age of17, while living in Moscow, he first dreamed about the possibility of space flight. He was, in part, inspired by the novels of Jules Verne. Since that time he started to think about the problems of space vehicle design. His great purpose was not simply to go into outer space, but to live in space, for humainity to become a space civilization.
In 1876-1879, after his coming back to his father's home, he lived in Vyatka and Ryasan. After passing his exams, he recieved his Teacher's Certificate, and went to work as a math teacher in Borovsk, Kaluga Province.
In 1880-1892 Tsiolkovsky lived in Borovsk and worked as a teacher. At that time he began his scientific research in air baloon building, life in free space, aerodynamics and philosophy. It was also at that time that he married. His wife, Barbara E. Sokolova, was the daughter of the local preacher. Together, they had 3 daughters and 4 sons.
In 1892-1935 he lived and worked in Kaluga. His moving to Kaluga was the result of a teaching promotion. He lived in the house that is now a part of the museum complex with his family from the year 1904 until his death in 1935. It was here in Kaluga that he became a well known scientist, and where he wrote and published his theories of space flight and inter-planetary travels. In Kaluga he wrote his Cosmic Philosophy, and he dreamed about the far distant future of humanity, including the eventual conquest of space and our leaving the cradle of the planet Earth for the stars. He was made a member of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1919.
He received a government pension in 1920, and continued to work and write about space. Upon the publication of the works of German rocket pioneer Herman Oberth in 1923, his works were revised and published more widely, and he finally earned some international recognition for his ideas. He wrote over 500 scientific papers, and, even though he never created any rockets himself, he influenced many young Russian engineers and designers. Tsiolkovsky lived to see a younger generation of Russian engineers and scientists begin to make his visionary concepts reality. Among these was Sergey Korolev, who would become the "Chief Designer" of the Soviet space program, who launched humanity into space withSputnik, Laika, and the launch of the first cosmonaut,Yuri Gagarin.
Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, the father of cosmonautics, died in Kaluga at the age of 78 on September 19,1935. He received an honored State funeral from the Soviet government. He was buried in the old Kaluga Cemetery, not far from the Museum that honors his life and work.
The tomb of Tsiolkovsky in the Old Kaluga Cemetery, near the Museum.

1 Rouble: V.I.Lenin's centenary

Reverse: Odin Rouble, or one rouble
Circumscribing lettering: 100 years of birth of Lenin
Obverse: Vladimir Illyich Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, the man behind the October revolution

1 Rouble: 60 years of Bolshevik revolution

The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 was initiated by millions of people who would change the history of the world as we know it. When Czar Nicholas II dragged 11 million peasants into World War I, the Russian people became discouraged with their injuries and the loss of life they sustained. The country of Russia was in ruins, ripe for revolution.

Then came Vladimir Illyich Lenin, back from exile in the spring of 1917 and he joined the Bolshevik party(Bolshevik means majority). In October 1917, the Bolsheviks stormed the winter palace and overthrew the Czar in a coup d'etat. The new government was made up of soviets, and led by the Bolsheviks. The other party that came into prominence were the Mensheviks, meaning the minority; and a bi-party system came into USSR.
The October revolution was actually held in November but it is called so because it was the month of October according to the then calendar system in Russia

USSR Rouble-V

1 Rouble: Moscow olympics 1980

Diameter: 31mm

Metal: copper-nickel

1 Rouble: 20 years of world war II victory

Obverse: Odin rouble, meaning one rouble beneath CCCP (the russian equivalent of USSR) and the national insignia.
Theme: 20 years of the victory in the second world war over Germany
Year: 1945+20=1965

1 Rouble: 70 years of the Bolshevik revolution

The diameter os the one rouble coins: 31mm. This one marks 70 years of the revolution in 1917. So this was minted in 1987. On the reverse we can see the year 1917. We can also see 70 let , with letmeaning years in Russian, the soviet symbol of hammer and sickle. USSR was a communist country. The hammer symbolizes the worker or the labourer and the sickle stands for the farmer.

The ship shown in the picture is most probably Admiral Gorshkov, the aircraft carrier of the soviet union.

USSR Rouble-VI

1 Rouble: 160th anniversary-birth of Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasyana Polyana, in the Tula district of Russia. The Tolstoys were a rich and influential family being the nobility. The initial part of his marriage was marked by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity as on marriage eve he handed his wife-to-be Sophie a diary which stated his philandering and libertarian ways, including the mention of a serf bearing birth to his son. But this did not hamper his marriage at all, and ostensibly all went smoothly.

War and peace is widely regarded as one the best ever novels, and is definitely Tolstoy's most renowned novel. In the novel he covered more than 800 characters; from a family room to Napoleon Boanaparte, from Tsar Alexander to the battefields of Borodino. He made his attempt at discovering about the war, and made clear that people like Napoleon and Alexander were insignificant as individuals. Interestingly, he did not consider War and Peace to be a novel, in sync with the zeitgiest of his times. He considered Anna Karenina to be his first novel. His novels bore profound influence of his own life experiences and many characters in his books were apparently blueprinted on his own character. He had contrastingly adverse reactions on reading Shakespeare: "Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby distorting their esthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great evil, as is every untruth."

In 1908, he wrote a letter to an Indian newspaper titled "A letter to a Hindu" which led to his correspondence with a young Mahatma Gandhi, who was then in South Africa, and was deeply infuenced to move unto the path of non-violence. Tolstoy was against the idea of a violent revolution. The two men also shared their ideals of celibacy, self abstinence and vegitarianism. Gandhi acknowledged the debt in his autobiography as: "The greatest apostle of non-violence that the present age has produced." The correspondence, however, lasted only for a year until 1909.

Tolstoy's ideas became more radical in the later part of his life. He started believing he was unworthy and undeserving of the vast wealth that he had inherited, for one. He was known to dispense large sums of money to vagrants, street beggers and needy peasants, much to the chagrin of his wife. He had been mooting the aspect of leaving his inherited wealth for many decades and in the winter of 1910, he decided to leave his fortune and family and start leading an ascetic life even though he had not been keeping well. He suffered from pneumonia and after a few days, collapsed near Apastavo station. His personal doctors were called for but they could do nothing. He passed away at the age of 82.

1 rouble: 175 years-birth of T.H. Shevchenko

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko is known as the father of modern Ukrainian literature. He also wrote in Russian and created many works as a painter and an illustarator.

He was born in 1814 in the village of Moryntsi in what is now Ukraine. By birth and heritage he was a serf(unfree peasant), orphaned at the age of 11. His painting skills caught the eye of the contemporaries and the Russian painter and professor Karl Bruillov donated a portrait, the proceeds of which were used to buy his freedom.

He started writing poetry when he was still a serf and in 1840, his first collection of poetry, Kobzar was published. Later on he made three trips to Ukraine, then under Russian empire, and he was moved by the poverty and the difficult conditions in which his countrymen lived. He proceeded to create an album titled picturesque Ukraine.

In 1845, he met the Brotherhood of the saints Cyril and Methodius, dedicated to liberation from the imperial rule. There was subsequent suppression of the society and in a search his poem "The Dream" was found. The poem was extremely critical of Tsar Nicholas I and his wife. So he was arrested along with members of the society and his punishment was the severest. He was exiled and put into prison and the Tsar took away his liberty to write or paint. But the Tsar's enforcement was weak and he continued to create new works and masterpieces.It was only in 1859 that he returned from exile.

Shevchenko died in 1861 following his harsh exiles and some illness. He died seven days before the serfs were emanciapted, and his works are revered in Ukrainians and his impact on Ukraine literature is immense.

USSR Kopeks

2 kopek, 1990

Weight: 2gm

Metal: Brass

Diameter: 18mm

3 kopek, 1990

Weight: 3gm

Metal: Aluminium-Bronze

Diameter: 22.05mm

5 kopek, 1976

Weight: 5gm

Metal: Aluminium-Bronze

Diameter: 25.1mm

10 kopek, 1991

15 kopek 1988

Weight: 2.5gm

Metal: Copper-nickel-zinc

Diameter: 19.5mm

20 kopek, 1986

Weight: 3.3gm

Metal: copper-nickel-zinc

Diameter: 22mm

50 kopek, 1964

Weight: 4.4gm

Metal: copper-nickel-zinc

Diameter: 24.05mm