1 Som 10 Years of April Revolution

The April Revolution of 2010 ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev after security forces opened fire on protesters in Bishkek, killing at least 85 people — one of the bloodiest episodes of post-Soviet Central Asian political upheaval. Bakiyev fled to Belarus, where he remains in exile. Kyrgyzstan subsequently adopted a new constitution shifting from a presidential to a parliamentary republic, the only such system in Central Asia.

Commemorative circulation coinage marking political revolutions is relatively unusual in the region; this issue is one of the few Soviet successor states to explicitly memorialize a violent government overthrow on currency.