25 Roubles Shlisselburg

Shlisselburg fortress, at the point where the Neva River exits Lake Ladoga, served as a political prison under the tsars for nearly two centuries — Peter the Great imprisoned his own sister Sophia there, and it later held Decembrists, Narodnaya Volya members, and Lenin's brother Alexander Ulyanov before his 1887 execution. The 2003 issue marks the 300th anniversary of the city's founding, part of Russia's broader St. Petersburg tercentenary commemorative program that produced dozens of large-format silver pieces that year.