15 Roubles Amur Region

The Amur Regional Government was one of dozens of local authorities that flooded Siberia and the Russian Far East with emergency fractional currency after the Bolshevik revolution disrupted coin supply and national banking. This particular series — the Амурский Областной Разменный Билет, literally "Amur Regional Exchange Note" — was issued specifically to substitute for small change, not as a general-circulation currency. The 15-rouble denomination sits awkwardly in that context; it is high enough to suggest the exchange function had already begun to stretch under inflation pressure by mid-1918.

The region was under constant political contest between White forces, local socialist administrations, and eventual Japanese occupation. Notes from this series frequently circulated alongside Japanese military scrip and a tangle of other local issues, which is why survivors show heavy wear.