50 Manat

Robert Kalina designed this note the same year he completed the euro banknote series for the European Central Bank — a fact that makes the visual grammar of the 2005 Azerbaijani manat issues immediately legible to anyone familiar with that work. The Austrian State Printing Works in Vienna, operating under its post-privatization name, handled production; their involvement with post-Soviet Central Asian and Caucasian currencies through this period was extensive.

The 2005 manat series replaced a transitional currency that had itself replaced Soviet-era rubles at a rate reflecting severe early-1990s hyperinflation. By 2005, one new manat equalled 5,000 old manats.