1 Rouble Francisk Scorina

Issued in the final year of Soviet commemorative coinage with any real institutional coherence, this rouble honours Francysk Skaryna, the Belarusian polymath who produced the first printed book in the Eastern Slavic world — a Cyrillic psalter printed in Prague in 1517. The Soviet state had a complicated relationship with Skaryna's memory; his deep Catholic associations and humanist ties to Western Europe made him an awkward figure for decades of official culture before rehabilitation became politically convenient.