10 Roubles G.G. Chernienko

Konstantin Chernenko led the Soviet Union for just thirteen months before dying in March 1985 — the third General Secretary to die in office within three years, a succession crisis that accelerated pressure for the reforms Gorbachev would later introduce. Pridnestrovie, the breakaway strip of Moldova that declared independence in 1990 and has never achieved broad international recognition, issues commemorative silver series drawing heavily on Soviet nostalgia, a reflection of its political culture and its unusual position as a state that functions economically while remaining diplomatically unrecognized by the United Nations.

Chernenko's brief tenure left little policy mark, but his death closed the door definitively on the old guard.