20 Roubles Belarus-Russia Community

Issued to mark the Union Treaty signed by Belarus and Russia on April 2, 1997, this coin commemorates what was intended as the first step toward full political and economic unification of the two states. That union never materialized in any meaningful constitutional sense. Lukashenko had championed the agreement partly as a vehicle for his own political ambitions within a merged state — ambitions that Moscow quietly sidelined.

KM#11 is among the earliest commemorative silver issues from the National Bank of Belarus, which had only gained full central banking authority in 1990.