3 Roubles Latvia, Libava, Libau

Libau — now Liepāja — was under Russian imperial administration when German forces pushed through Courland in the spring of 1915. The city fell to Germany in early May, but this note was issued by the Russian-era municipal government before the occupation, as the collapsing front severed normal currency supply lines from Petrograd. Municipal emergency emissions like this one filled the gap left by an imperial banking system that had simply stopped functioning at the local level.

The watermarked paper indicates some preparation — this was not a purely improvised scrip — but the issuing authority ceased to exist within weeks of printing.