1000 Leva Zlatni

Bulgaria entered the First World War in October 1915 on the side of the Central Powers, and the financial strain showed quickly. The 1000 Leva Zlatni — "golden leva" — was nominally tied to a gold standard that Bulgaria could not meaningfully maintain by 1916. The denomination was enormous by domestic standards, intended for large institutional transactions rather than retail use, and the wartime inflationary pressure that would eventually detach the leva entirely from any metallic basis was already building.

Printed domestically at the Sofia State Printing House rather than contracted abroad, as many Balkan issues of the period were. The watermark remains the sole mechanical security feature — modest for a note of this face value, but consistent with wartime production constraints.