100 Roubles Capricorn

Transnistria — the narrow strip of land between the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border — issued this coin as a self-governing state recognized by no United Nations member. The Transnistrian Republican Bank has functioned as a fully operational central bank since 1992, producing coinage and banknotes for a country that exists in a permanent legal grey zone following the brief 1992 war with Moldova. The zodiac series to which this piece belongs was a deliberate soft-power exercise, circulating internationally through the collector market in a way Transnistrian political documents never could.