100 Roubles Snow Leopard

Issued as part of Russia's ongoing wildlife conservation series, this piece was struck at the Moscow Mint (MMD) in 2000 — a year when the newly inaugurated Putin administration was still consolidating federal authority over Siberian resource territories where the snow leopard's range overlaps with extractive industry expansion. Mintages for this series were consistently low, with individual animal issues rarely exceeding a few thousand pieces, making survival rates in any condition quite narrow.