1 Hryvnia

Ukraine's first post-Soviet hryvnia series was printed in Canada well before the notes actually entered circulation — the 1992-dated issues were held back while the country continued using Soviet-era karbovanets coupons through an extended monetary transition. The hryvnia itself wasn't officially introduced until September 1996, meaning these notes sat in storage for roughly four years before anyone spent one.

The Canadian Bank Note Company contract was a deliberate choice for a state with no established security printing infrastructure of its own. Engravers Borys Maksymov and Vasyl Lopata were among the first Ukrainians to work on sovereign currency design from scratch — a discipline that had been entirely controlled from Moscow for decades.