2020-09-20
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Money of Odessa 1917
Odessans also showed themselves as true Odessans here
In 1917, Odessa was living with the same problems as the whole of Russia-literally 'without a Tsar in my head': freedom, rallies and anarchy. Revolutionaries of all stripes, having removed as it seemed to them, the main evil in the form of autocracy, worked hard with their elbows, pushing competitors for elected positions – where can we think that for a good life people still need stability in the economy, including its most important element – stable money?
To call the kerenki launched in 1917 into circulation this word did not turn the tongue of either the right or the left. And after the Bolsheviks seized power, who in theory denied the need for money as such, the Central government did not bother at all about ensuring the market turnover with the required amount of means of payment: let them solve this problem locally. On the ground and decided.
To assume that Odessa will not print its own money at a time when half the country, including some district cities, was doing this with inspiration, is to disrespect the inhabitants of Odessa. To Bring people did not go shopping, but as a tour-still not to happen!
On December 12, 1917, the city Duma of Odessa decided to issue what was called 'Odessa exchange tickets'with unusual modesty for Odessans. In December 1917, they began to print them, and immediately after the new year, Odessa residents had new ones – their own Odessa money!
3 rubles, 5 rubles, 10 rubles - this was just the beginning. Probably, they were in a hurry-otherwise how can they explain that they did not attract a native Odessan in the 5th generation to design the banknote, but an engraver Adamek, a Czech by nationality.
Further - more: in April 1917, the printing house of Moses Spenzer, the father of the poet Vera Inber, printed tickets in denominations of 25 rubles and 50 rubles.
The design of the 25-ruble bill was a colorful mix of Odessa and Russian symbols without admixture of Ukrainian national specifics.
On the obverse - 2 images that claim to be the coat of arms of Russia in the form of double-headed eagles, but without the attributes of Royal power and in a very interesting version: not a symbolic image of the coat of arms, but a three-dimensional live bird with 2 heads in the manner of Siamese twins, flapping its wings before flight. And it seems that the artist painted the eagle from a Seagull – well, very similar!
On the reverse in a vignette-anchor, coat of arms of the port city of Odessa.
Another simpler anchor is already on the obverse: for a city on the Black sea, anchors are appropriate in any quantity.
Under the simpler anchor at the bottom - the inscription 'Forgery is prosecuted', and written twice, to the left and right of the face value: probably, so that both the left and right eyes of those plotting evil better recorded this terrible warning.
Not recorded.
If in Odessa all contraband was made, according to Ostap Bender, on Malaya Arnautskaya street, then there were also suitable places for printing fake Odessa bonds: in 1918, 7 underground printing houses were opened in the city to produce them – the Odessans did not need contraband, they managed on their own.
'Change tickets of Odessa' went under the Soviets in 1918, and under the Austro-German occupation, and under Hetman Skoropadsky, and under Petlyura, and under the French intervention, and under Denikin-the power in the city changed 14 times.
Went not only in Odessa-went in Kherson, Nikolaev, Ekaterinoslav.
Went until February 1920: with the Bolsheviks in the city came sovznaki and the money account is already in the millions-how could you take seriously the denominations of Odessa bonds from 3 rubles to 50 rubles? A box of matches cost more.
the green Odessa 25-ruble bill And 437594 marked its 100th anniversary in my collection, being in excellent preservation: I must assume that by the time it was born, it already had value only for future collectors.
Деньги Одессы 1917 г.
25 рублей 1917 г., Одесса
Country
:
Denomination
:
25 рубль
Year
:
1917
Quantity
:
Issuer
:
Одесская контора Государственного банка
Series
:
Valid from
:
Valid till
:
Cancelled
:
Alexander R.
