The history of the ruble. How the ruble appeared

Ruble is a historical Russian monetary unit. The history of the origin of the ruble officially begins with the Novgorod birchbark letters of the beginning of the 13th century, but many historians agree that the ruble, as a monetary concept, existed earlier, possibly since the tenth century.

Origin of the concept

The history of the origin of the ruble is directly connected with the history of the Novgorod Land. The first written mention of the ruble dates from 1281-1299. At that time, many scattered Russian principalities used the Kiev hryvnia as a monetary unit. We can assume that the history of the development of the ruble is a continuation or even an "offshoot" of the history of the hryvnia.

At the beginning of the 13th century, in Novgorod, there were 200 grams of silver ingots in the form of sticks, which, with their oblong form and weight, resembled a hryvnia, the monetary unit of Kievan Rus. However, unlike in Kiev, in Novgorod these bars were called "ruble".

The history of the Russian ruble connects the name of the monetary unit with a simple Russian people. Since the name differs from its belonging to common speech, it is likely that bullion began to be called ingots long before the first mention in the letters, which is why it is very difficult to determine the exact time of origin of the ruble.

Value

There is no consensus on the value of the first rubles. In the fragmented principalities, silver bullion was used - hryvnia or ruble, for smaller settlements foreign coins, denarii and dirhams, called "kunas" in Russian, were used.

Sometimes 200-gram ingots had to be cut to half a ruble or smaller pieces, for accuracy calculations. This fact complicates the definition of the exact value of the ruble, because according to one data, the ruble was an analog of the hryvnia, and on the other - its "stump" equal to 100 grams.

It is likely that the fragmented principalities did not fully converge in the names of monetary units, and the ruble in Novgorod was really equal to the hryvnia, and the ruble in Moscow was half that. It is proved that the Lithuanian rubles that appeared later were weighed in 100 g.

Etymology of the word

The history of the ruble does not have data on the exact origin of the term. To date, there are four main variants of the origin of the word "ruble". The main version - the ruble is a derivative of the word "rub", which means "seam". The Novgorod ruble was minted according to the technology, according to which at first half of the silver was poured into the mold, and then the second part, while in the middle of the ingot a seam formed. Hence the common name of the ingot - the ruble.

According to the second version, the root of the word comes from the verb "hack". In this case, scientists are considering two possible options. First - the ruble was part of the hryvnia, or rather, its quarter; That is, half a ruble, chopped in half. The second option - the Novgorod ruble differed from the Kiev hryvnia by notches, specifying the dignity and value of the silver ingot.

The other two versions suggest the borrowing of the term from other languages. Perhaps the word "ruble" has common roots with the word "rupee", which means "silver processed". In addition, the connection with the Arabic word "quarter" is probable, which sounds like "rub."

The history of the ruble stops on the first two versions, as historians share the opinion that the word "ruble" belongs to the common speech, which does not agree with the possibility of borrowing the term.

The first rubles

The use of solid ingots of silver was extremely inconvenient, but continued until the XIV century, when during the reign of Dmitry Donskoy new small coins began to be minted. Each coin weighed slightly less than one gram and was called "money", being a legacy of the Tatar-Mongol yoke. It is from this moment begins the history of the coin "ruble".

Coins differed in form, as it was difficult to mint the ideal circle, however, the weight and stamp in the center of the coin were the same. The design of the seal could differ depending on the principality in which the coins were minted.

Due to the transition to smaller money, the calculations became much more convenient and over time 200-gram ingots came out of ordinary people's use and became used only in wholesale trade.

Under the influence of the political power of the Novgorod and Moscow principalities, as well as the West-Russian Lithuanian principality, by the fifteenth century, the ruble completely supplanted the hryvnia and became not only the name of the ingot, but also the philistine concept adopted for calculating and counting the amount of money on the farm.

Changes and reforms

The first widespread monetary reform of the ruble was carried out in the middle of the 16th century. In 1534, a unified monetary reform began in Moscow, whose goal was to unify the coins used for settlements, as well as to get rid of the domestic market from foreign currency, which made confusion in trade.

The basic monetary unit was the Moscow ruble, which consisted of 200 Moscow money or 100 Novgorod money. Subsequently Novgorod coins began to be called "kopecks", and Moscow - "swords". These names are associated with printing on the reverse side of the coins. On a penny, a warrior with a spear on a horse was minted, and on a sword, a warrior with a sword. The smallest coin was considered to be a half-a-half, that is, half of a mechenka; Often it was just a coin, chopped or broken in half.

Since silver ingots worth dur ing the ruble during the sixteenth century completely disappeared from everyday life, the ruble, until the middle of the 16th century, remained nothing more than a measured unit.

In 1654 the coin was first struck with a denomination of one ruble. In fact, these were the German coins that were coined, on which the emblem (the two-headed eagle) was printed on one side , and on the other hand the king was portrayed on horseback. The coin was called the "ruble", but weighed less than its dignity - 64 grams.

Under the reign of Peter I, the money was minted independently, and a number of changes were made and copper kopecks weighing 28 grams and worth 1 / 100th of the ruble were introduced. In addition to copper kopecks, gold dumplings worth 3 rubles and weighing just over 3 g of gold were introduced. Later, by the end of the 18th century, the weight of silver in a 1 ruble coin was reduced to 18 grams.

Assignments

The first paper rubles appeared during the reign of Catherine II, in 1769. These notes were in circulation for 50 years; At that time their seal was not controlled by the state, which led to an actual collapse of the economy, since there were more paper rubles than the precious metals providing them. In 1843 the banknotes were completely withdrawn from use.

The first failed banknotes were replaced in the same year with bank notes, however, for the same reasons, banks soon stopped exchanging them for silver and gold - there was more paper money than the metal allocated for security.

The reform of 1897 introduced a new paper ruble, backed by gold. The printing of rubles was carried out using a new technology that involves the use of several colors and different levels of protection. Multicolour Oryol printing (named in honor of Ivan Orlov) allowed to avoid fakes and increase the control of the state over the issue of the number of banknotes.

The beginning of the twentieth century and the tsarist monetary system

The period of the collapse of the Russian Empire and the formation of Soviet Russia is usually called a "troubled time". Not surprisingly, the history of the Russian ruble during this period is considered the most difficult and the number of official and unofficial changes in the currency is difficult to calculate.

Even during the Japanese War, the Empire began to lack cash; Popular discontent, coup attempts, as well as Russia's entry into the world war, in fact led the Empire to an extreme shortage of money. From the use of disappeared all coins, even the smallest.

In practice, everything that for reporting was called ruble and used in trading, did not have even the smallest value, because it was not backed up by a stock of precious metals. Rubles began to be called self-printed banknotes, wine labels and even painted money. In the history of the ruble, as in the history of the country, this period can be considered the most unstable.

The first Soviet rubles

The history of the ruble in Russia in the early Soviet period begins in 1923, when the first gold chervonets, equivalent to 10 imperial rubles, was minted. Silver coins were made for the exchange of gold coins. This is one of the rarest Soviet coins, since chervontsi and silversmiths were used mainly for foreign transactions, they practically did not remain on the territory of the country.

Since the 30-ies. Twentieth century began to appear paper rubles and small coins of cheap metal alloys. The government's efforts to bring money to a single format continued until the middle of the century, with the appearance of rubles and kopecks changing very often.

Reform of 1961

The most ambitious monetary reform in the history of the USSR and, perhaps, Russia as a whole was being prepared for 10 years. Materials and value of the new ruble were selected, a single format was drawn up and a single design was selected. Over the next few years, the Union has completely replaced all funds for new ones.

One ruble of a new sample was equated to 10 old rubles (the first Soviet sample) and had a gold equivalent of 1 g of gold. The coins of precious metals were not minted any more, except for the issue of coins, timed to important events or anniversary dates.

The Modern Russian Ruble

The history of the ruble underwent another crisis in the early 90's. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, old Soviet rubles were in use until 1993, when inflation and the economic crisis completely undermined the national currency and prevented a painless transition to a new format of money .

To avoid an increase in inflation in 1993, the monetary reform was carried out and new bills with a large number of zeros were accepted for circulation. In 1998, the government of the Russian Federation carried out a series of monetary reforms, followed by a denomination and the issuance of new notes, which are in circulation to this day.