2 Roubles A. Nikitin

Part of the Bank of Russia's ongoing commemorative series honoring figures of Russian science and culture, this piece marks the 275th anniversary of the birth of Afanasy Nikitin — the Tver merchant who traveled overland to India in the 1460s, roughly three decades before Vasco da Gama reached the subcontinent by sea. Nikitin's account, *Khozheniye za tri morya* ("A Journey Beyond Three Seas"), is one of the earliest known travel narratives by a European in India and became a cornerstone of Russian geographical literature.

The .500 fineness places it among Russia's mid-tier commemorative silver issues of the 1990s, a period when the CBR was producing these series at volume.