50 Roubles

Russia's assignats were the country's first paper currency, authorized by Catherine II in 1769 to fund ongoing war expenditures against the Ottoman Empire. The Assignation Bank operated two branches — Moscow and Saint Petersburg — and early notes were redeemable for copper coin, not silver, a distinction that immediately undermined public confidence. Copper's bulk made paper a practical convenience, but the peg to copper rather than silver was widely seen as a depreciation signal from the outset.

The 1771 date places this among the earliest issues, before chronic oversupply eroded the assignat's value through the Napoleonic period. Border lettering as a security device reflects the limited anti-counterfeiting technology available domestically at the time.