1 Rouble, USSR, 1947

The 1947 reform was a confiscation dressed as a currency exchange. Old roubles were swapped for new at ten to one, while wages and prices were restated at par — so savings held in cash lost ninety per cent of their value overnight, and bank deposits above a threshold were cut on a sliding scale. It was designed to destroy the money accumulated during the war, much of it in the hands of people the state regarded as speculators.

What makes the note worth looking at is the list down its face: the denomination in fifteen languages — Ukrainian, Belarusian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Lithuanian, Moldovan, Latvian, Kirghiz, Tajik, Armenian, Turkmen, Estonian — one for each union republic. It is a federal claim printed on the smallest denomination in circulation, in a year when the Baltic republics named on it had been annexed for seven years.