10 Tenga - Muhammad Alim Khan bin Abdul-Ahad

Muhammad Alim Khan was the last Emir of Bukhara, and this issue belongs to the final, desperate phase of his rule. The Bolshevik Red Army besieged Bukhara in September 1920, taking the city in roughly three days. Alim Khan fled to Afghanistan, where he died in 1944, never recovering his throne.

The brass composition here reflects wartime material shortages — earlier Bukharan tangas were struck in silver. By 1919, that was no longer viable. This piece circulated, if at all, for months before the emirate ceased to exist entirely.