Money, Money, Money

Having spent all of my life using the American dollar, a currency that I consider to be less-than-beautiful appearance-wise, I always am fascinated with the coins and paper money of other currencies with more colorful or otherwise visually appealing designs. I am quite fond of the ruble in this regard, for it meets both of those criteria quite well.

The exchange rate from dollars to Rubles hovers at about 33 rubles per dollar. This results in several things, one being initial shock at seeing three-digit prices on things that would cost only a few dollars in the United States (followed by confusion, then the realization that they still only cost a few dollars). I also end up handling paper money with rather large numbers on it on a daily basis. A $25 grocery shopping trip comes out to be about 800 rubles. The best part, though, is getting money from an ATM- I almost feel like I've won the lottery when the machine spits out a neat little stack of 500 ruble notes for me to take.

I had initially planned to take and post some pictures of the Russian banknotes that I use to buy everything from pointe shoes to toilet paper to chocolate, but, lacking a definitive answer as to whether or not one is actually allowed to do that, I have elected not to do so.

They are really quite beautiful, though, so I still want to talk about them. The notes are all printed on white paper, but the colors vary. Fifty-ruble notes are primarily blue, hundred-ruble notes are printed in reddish brown, and five-hundred-ruble notes use mostly purple. The front and back feature illustrations of cultural landmarks in Moscow and St. Petersburg, all of which are things like the statue of four horses leaping from the roof of the Bolshoi Theater, the landmark depicted on the hundred-ruble note.

In addition to 50, 100, and 500 ruble denominations, there are also 10 ruble notes and larger notes. There are also many different coins. There are coins for 1, 2, 5, and 10 rubles, and also for 10 and 50 kopeks (a kopek is to a ruble what a cent is to a dollar). There are (or used to be) 1 and 5 kopek coins, but I have gone almost a full two months without ever coming across a single one.

The coins are just as nice as the paper money. Most have a two-headed Russian eagle on one side and their value on the other side, framed by a few twisting vines. The ten-ruble coin and the kopek coins are golden in color; the rest are silver. 

The ten-ruble coin is particularly cool; inside the zero of the 10 on the front, there are what appear to be just horizontal stripes, but if you look at the coin from the correct angle, you can see the letters РУБ, the Russian abbreviation for ruble, between these stripes. It's such a subtle detail that is easy to miss, and I think that that is the best thing about it.

The biggest coin is the five-ruble coin, not the ten-ruble coin. I find that interesting because the situation is very similar with the coins of the US dollar, since nickels are significantly larger than dimes. I have no idea why that is the case. Perhaps it is only coincidence, or perhaps there is a perfectly good explanation for this that I simply do not know. Regardless, it is just a little something that I thought was fascinating.