Since the time of Peter the Great, Russia has been coining away very diligently for herself; at first, copper and silver, then gold, and lately platina j but as each sovereign coined, in a great measure, according to his own liking, the ruble of one reign is found to vary very materially from that of another. Since Catherine's time, bank certificates have also been issued, whose nominal value was at first the same as that of the metallic sums represented, but gradually the paper money sunk in estimation to one-half, afterwards to one-third, and in the end to little more than onefourth of the same amount in silver. Lately, by an imperial ukase, the value of paper as compared with silver has been fixed at 1 : 3 -jf^jji so that a silver ruble is declared to be equal in value to three rubles and sixty copeks in paper. The paper ruble (worth about lO^d. English) was adopted for all general calculations ; but in addition to this, there was established at Moscow, and at several points in the south of Russia, the ruble currency, of which fortythree are equal to forty paper rubles.
With such a complicated system, the profession of a money-changer has become an indispensable one in every Russian town ; and at the fairs of Novgorod and Kharkoff, these miniature banks are numberless. They are to be found, however, even in the smallest cities. In Poltova, for instance, a town of 8000 inhabitants, there are more than fifty money-changers. These people carry on their commerce in the open market-place, where their bank-notes, and their little piles of gold, silver, and copper coins are set out in the most attractive manner. In the usual style of the Russian merchant, the changer invites the passer-by to stop and change his money, well aware, from experience, how often all men are embarrassed by the money they carry about them. During the .bustle of the fair, business to the amount of some hundred thousand rubles will often be done in one day at one of these tables ; yet the banker keeps no books, has no other countinghouse than his table, and makes all his calculations by the aid of his tshotki, or reckoning-board, slipping the beads up and down the brass chords of his stringed instrument with astonishing rapidity, and often solving the most intricate questions with the greatest apparent facility. To give some idea of the complicated nature of his transactions, I will describe some of the current and ideal coinages in which it is his custom to deal.
The paper ruble is a fictitious coin, and stands, as has ah-eady been said, in proportion to the silver ruble as 1 to 3 ^%"o • Ten silver rubles are worth nine Prussian dollars. (A silver ruble is worth about 3^. d. sterling). There are bank-notes of 500, 200, 100, 50, 25, 10, and 5 rubles, but none higher than 500 or less than 5. The five ruble notes are blue, the ten ruble notes red, and all the others are white. No descrij)tion of money is seen more frequently in Russia than these blue and red notes ; in St. Petersburg, indeed, and throughout the north, almost all payments are made in paper. The ruble currency which prevails in Moscow and the south occasions immense confusion and trouble, as all small silver coins arc struck with reference to the paper ruble, of which forty are equal to forty - three rubles currency.
Gold coins are even now but rarely seen. They are more current in the south than in the north, and more in Poland than in Russia. The imperial is worth forty paper rubles, and in the south forty-throe rubles. The next in value is the poluimperial, or half-imperial, which passes for twenty rubles. The Dutch ducat is called tshcrvonets, and sometimes gollamhki. The French twenty-franc pieces (Napoleons) ai'c also met with. The Russians call tlieni lobandshihs^ from lob, the forehead, on account of the liigh forehead usually given to Napoleon on these coins.
Platina money has been coined of late years, but is rarely found in circulation, though in the north more than in the south. There are pieces of twelve and others of six rubles.
The silver coin most current throughout Russia is the nible, so called from the word ruhit^ to hew off, because in former times silver was current only in bars, from which it was customary for a debtor to strike off with a hammer and chisel the amount which he had to pay. The silver ruble is carefully distinguished by merchants into old and new rubles, the former being always worth twenty or thirty copeks more than the latter. In South Russia, the silver ruble passes for four rubles.
The poltinik, or half-ruble, is equal to about two paper rubles, and the tshetvertak, or quarter, to one ruble.
The silver ruble contains 100 silver copeks, but no such coin really exists, either as a coinage or in the customary calculations. Of all silver coins smaller than the tshetvertak, the value is calculated in paper copeks, of which a hundred go to the paper ruble. Thus there is the vosmigrivnik, wliich is worth eighty copeks, or ninety-two copeks currency ; the shestigrivnik^ worth sixty copeks, or sixty-nine copeks currency ; and the grivnik^ worth forty copeks, or forty-six copeks currency. These small silver coins are ftir from being so abundant as they ought to be, and it is partly to the scarcity of small silver coins that the money-changers are indebted for so much business.
This scarcity of small silver coins has tended to keep the Polish coins so much m circulation. These are the three-florin piece tri slotikh\ which is worth one ruble and eighty copeks; the dwa slotikh, worth one ruble and twenty copeks ; and the slot, worth sixty copeks.