250 Roubles, Provisional Government, 1917

The 250-rouble note of 1917, and the one collectors ask about, because a swastika sits in the underprint of its reverse behind the eagle. It is a kolovrat — a sun-wheel used across Slavic and Indian ornament — chosen years before the symbol meant anything else, and carried over into the Soviet 1918 issues. Money of the Provisional Government — the eight months between the fall of the monarchy in February 1917 and the Bolshevik seizure of power in October.

The design is the empire's, with the regalia removed: the double-headed eagle keeps both heads but loses its crowns, orb and sceptre. It is a state trying to be continuous with what came before while disowning the part everyone objected to. The gold clause is still printed on the face, still promising exchange without limit of sum, still void since 1914.

These are the last notes of a Russia that was neither imperial nor Soviet, and they were obsolete within months of issue — though, like everything else from the period, they went on circulating for years because there was nothing better.