1 Tyiyn, National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic

When the Soviet Union dissolved, Kyrgyzstan became the first Central Asian republic to leave the rouble zone, launching its own currency, the som, on 10 May 1993 — well ahead of its neighbours. The first issue was spare and utilitarian: a handful of som notes together with these small tyiyn fractions (one som being divided into a hundred tyiyn). This 1-tyiyn note is Pick 1, the lowest value of that inaugural series, and it was printed hastily on plain paper with no watermark and no security thread, a plain measure of how quickly monetary independence had to be improvised.

The design is wholly national. The obverse shows a golden eagle — the berkut (Aquila chrysaetos) flown by Kyrgyz hunters and a long-standing emblem of the mountain country — rising in flight within an ornamental roundel, lettered "КЫРГЫЗ РЕСПУБЛИКАСЫ" (Kyrgyz Republic) and "БИР ТЫЙЫН" (one tyiyn). The reverse carries a traditional ornamental pattern. Inflation swiftly made the tyiyn denominations redundant, and they survive mostly unspent in collectors' hands.