25 Zarin Grigory Sabanov

South Ossetia has no internationally recognized central bank in any functional sense — the territory's "National Bank" is a quasi-governmental body operating within a state recognized only by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Syria, and a handful of Pacific island nations. These issues are produced primarily for the numismatic export market rather than any domestic monetary function, a practice common among unrecognized or partially recognized states seeking hard currency revenue.

Grigory Sabanov was a 19th-century Ossetian military figure who served in the Imperial Russian Army, reaching general officer rank — one of several such figures the territory has drawn on to construct a distinct national iconographic program.