25 Roubles

The State Credit Note series of which this belongs was introduced under Finance Minister Sergei Witte as part of Russia's move toward the gold standard, formally achieved in 1897. The 25 Rouble denomination was among the higher-value notes in everyday circulation — enough to matter, not so large as to be rarities in commerce. Witte's currency reform tied the rouble to gold at a rate that required significant reserve accumulation throughout the mid-1890s, and the timing of this 1895 issue places it squarely in that transition.

The embossed seal was applied as a tactile anti-counterfeiting measure, a practice the State Bank continued into the early twentieth century. Examples with flattened or faint embossing are not uncommon, as the seal degrades with folding.