10 Roubles

Russia's assignat system was launched by Catherine II in 1769 as a pragmatic fix for a chronic shortage of copper coin — the empire's primary transactional currency — which had become physically unwieldy for large payments. The Assignation Bank was never truly an independent institution; it operated as an arm of the treasury, which meant the note supply was governed more by state expenditure than by any banking discipline. Successive wars against the Ottomans, Sweden, and later Napoleon drove massive overissue, and by 1810 the assignat ruble had lost roughly two-thirds of its silver parity.

The 1817 date marks the final year of issue before the series was frozen ahead of the eventual redemption program, which dragged on until 1843.