Russian Empire, Peter I The Great, Ruble 1719

To open the Russian economy to the West, Peter the Great (1682/9-1725) reformed the Russian currency system. In 1704, he introduced the silver ruble; one ruble held 100 kopecks. The layout for the ruble was aligned with the western talers. The obverse was embellished with the portrait of the tsar, while the reverse showed the national emblem, the crowned double eagle. The legends and the dates were consistently in Russian at the beginning, written in Cyrillic script. From 1710, the Cyrillic dates were gradually replaced by Arabic figures.