25 000 Drams Astghik

Artsakh — the self-declared Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh — issued this piece during a period of uneasy ceasefire following the brutal 1988–1994 war with Azerbaijan, in which an estimated 30,000 people died. Coinage served a political function here as much as any economic one: asserting statehood through the trappings of a sovereign mint, despite the republic receiving no UN recognition.

Astghik is the pre-Christian Armenian goddess of water, fertility, and love — her cult centered at Ashtishat before its destruction under Christianization in the 4th century.