1 000 000 Karbovantsiv Lesya Ukrayinka

Ukraine's post-Soviet hyperinflation was among the worst in Europe during the early 1990s — the karbovanets lost value so rapidly that by 1996 the government was replacing it entirely with the hryvnia at a rate of 100,000 karbovantsiv to one hryvnia. This coin, denominated at one million karbovantsiv, was struck not for circulation but as a collector issue in the final months of the currency's existence, a peculiar artifact of a denomination that was simultaneously enormous and nearly worthless in everyday transactional terms.

Lesya Ukrayinka, the poet honored here, died of tuberculosis in 1913 at forty-two — her image had already appeared on Soviet-era banknotes before Ukraine reclaimed her as a national figure.