150 Roubles Ioann Veniaminov

Issued in the final months of the Soviet Union, this coin honors Ioann Veniaminov — the 19th-century Orthodox missionary who spent decades among the Aleut and Tlingit peoples of Russian America before becoming Metropolitan of Moscow in 1868. The Leningrad Mint struck this piece under a government that would cease to exist within months of its release, making the institutional attribution quietly anomalous: the mint itself was renamed to the Saint Petersburg Mint in 1991.

Part of a platinum commemorative program the Soviet state launched in its dying years, partly to generate hard currency from Western collectors and bullion buyers.