Hallo. Dear
forum participants, I present to your attention an article dedicated to the first russian coins. I
hope my article will be useful. I translated the article from russian, there may be errors in translation, I apologize in advance.
For quite a long period of time, only foreign coins participated in the monetary circulation of Kievan Rus: arab dirhams,
byzantine solidi,
roman denarii,
german pfennigs and other coins.
This situation continued until the end of the X century, when the Kievan
king began minting their own coins on the model of the coins of
Byzantium. By itself, the minting of their own coins in
Russia did not have any economic necessity, the monetary turnover was quite enough for foreign coins that were in circulation. Such a move to issue coins
had a clearly political purpose - the issue of coins served as an additional sign of the sovereignty of the Kievan
king.
Issued two
types of coins - "srebrenik" and "zlatnik".
Srebrenik is a silver coin minted in
Russia from the end of the X century to the beginning of the XI century from silver arab coins. Produced during the reign of
king Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (before 1015),
king Svyatopolk Vladimirovich (1015) and during the reign of
king Yaroslav the
Wise during
his reign in Novgorod. In its size and
weight approximately correspond to the
byzantine miliarisium (
weight about 4.5 grams, similar
diameter), the
first coins mostly repeated the
type of
byzantine coins (
obverse — the image of the
king,
reverse — the image of
Christ). At the beginning of the XI century, the image of
Christ was replaced by a large generic sign of the Rurikovich.
For a long time, srebrenik was considered a fairly
rare coin, almost not available for sale, but now, thanks to the development of instrument
search, such coins are found more often and srebreniki have become much more accessible to collectors.
Zlatnik - a gold coin issued in
Russia during the reign of
king Vladimir Svyatoslavovich in the late X century - early XI century. The real name of this coin is unknown, the name zlatnik is conditional. In size and
weight correspond to the
Byzantine solid (
diameter 19-24 mm,
weight 4.0-4.4 grams).
The
history of the discovery of zlatnik is noteworthy. The first zlatnik was purchased by Bunge In 1796 in Kiev from a soldier who received it as a gift from
his mother. In 1815, the Kiev collector Mogilyansky bought the coin from Bunge, but soon lost it. The coin became known among collectors for its plaster
cast. Initially, zlatniki and srebreniki were considered serbian or
bulgarian imitations of the
byzantine coinage, but subsequent finds in the
hoards (for example, found in 1804 in Pinsk and transferred to the Hermitage
hoard of
byzantine solids XI century with several zlatniki Vladimir), careful research of coins and deciphering the inscriptions allowed to establish their ancient Russian origin.
This discovery forced a review of the entire
collection of
byzantine coins in the
Hermitage collection. Among the coins found near Pinsk, 4
gold coins were found. With the increase in finds of coins, mostly srebreniks, a certain skepticism about the existence of a coin system in Kievan Rus at the end of the X century was overcome. Finally doubts disappeared in 1852 after the discovery of a treasure trove of more than two hundred silver coins in Nizhyn.
To date, it is known about the existence of 11 zlatnik, including 7 zlatnik in the Hermitage, 1 zlatnik in State historical Museum in Moscow, 1 zlatnik in the National Museum of
history of Ukraine, 1 zlatnik in the Odessa archaeological Museum, and the location of another zlatnik is unknown.
Judging by the small number of extant copies, the issue of zlatniks was extremely short in time and small in volume. However, all known now copies of Zlatnik were found in the
hoards along with other coins of that time, they bear traces of being in circulation — therefore, these coins were not ritual, reward or gift. In the XI century, judging by the finds of these coins in the
hoards in Pinsk and Kinburg, zlatniks participated in international monetary circulation.
That's about it. Thank you all for your attention. If you have any questions, suggestions or suggestions, please contact us and we will discuss everything. I plan to write an article about russian
medieval coins from the time of Ivan the Terrible in the future.