10 Som Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded in 2001 and headquartered in Beijing, was the subject of several commemorative issues from member states around its early anniversaries. Kyrgyzstan joined as a founding member alongside Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan — a geopolitical alignment that marked a significant reorientation of Central Asian states toward a Beijing-Moscow axis rather than Western institutions.

KM#10 is one of a small run of Kyrgyz silver commemoratives from this period, a series that rarely achieved wide distribution outside the country's banking system.