500 Tenge

Kazakhstan operates its own banknote printing facility in Almaty — one of relatively few central Asian states with fully domestic production capacity. The factory has been printing the national currency since 1997, shortly after the tenge itself was introduced in November 1993 to replace the Soviet ruble following independence.

The security specification here is notably lean for a 2025-dated note — watermark and thread without the optically variable elements now common in contemporaneous issues from neighboring central banks. Whether that reflects a deliberate cost tier for this denomination or an incomplete catalog entry remains to be confirmed.