10 Soʻm

Uzbekistan's som was introduced in November 1993, replacing the Russian ruble as the country sought monetary independence following the Soviet collapse. The nickel-clad steel composition of this series reflects the economic constraints of the late 1990s, when Uzbekistan operated under strict currency controls that the IMF repeatedly criticized — the official exchange rate was kept artificially strong while a black market rate diverged dramatically, sometimes by a factor of three or more.