100 Soʻm Amir-Timur Museum

Issued to commemorate the opening of the Amir Timur Museum in Tashkent, which had been inaugurated by President Islam Karimov in 1996 as part of a deliberate state programme to rehabilitate Timur — known in the West as Tamerlane — as a founding figure of Uzbek national identity. The Soviet era had largely suppressed his memory; post-independence, he was repositioned almost overnight as the country's defining historical symbol.

KM#20 is one of the earliest silver commemoratives struck under the Central Bank's numismatic programme, which was still finding its footing in 2001.