Efrem Eshba was one of the founding figures of Soviet Abkhazia, serving as head of the Abkhazian Revolutionary Committee in the early 1920s before the republic was folded into the Transcaucasian SFSR. The National Bank of Abkhazia has consistently used its commemorative series to assert a distinct national history — a politically loaded exercise given that Georgia still considers Abkhazia occupied territory and most of the world does not recognize the republic's independence.
These issues circulate almost exclusively among thematic collectors; the coins have no practical monetary function in a territory where the Russian ruble is the de facto currency.
Efrem Eshba was one of the founding figures of Soviet Abkhazia, serving as head of the Abkhazian Revolutionary Committee in the early 1920s before the republic was folded into the Transcaucasian SFSR. The National Bank of Abkhazia has consistently used its commemorative series to assert a distinct national history — a politically loaded exercise given that Georgia still considers Abkhazia occupied territory and most of the world does not recognize the republic's independence.
These issues circulate almost exclusively among thematic collectors; the coins have no practical monetary function in a territory where the Russian ruble is the de facto currency.