10 Roubles Republic of Buryatia

Buryatia's inclusion in the Bank of Russia's ongoing Russian Federation subjects series was straightforward enough — 85 federal subjects, one coin each — but the Republic occupies an unusual position as the administrative homeland of Russia's Buryat people, a Mongolic group whose Buddhist institutions survived Soviet suppression well enough that the Ivolginsky datsan, re-established in 1945, became the center of official Soviet-era Buddhism. The coin entered circulation in 2011 alongside several other regional issues struck at the Moscow and Saint Petersburg mints as part of the same production run.