3 Roubles

The 1895 3-rouble note belongs to a transitional moment in Russian imperial finance. Witte's currency reform was already underway — the gold standard would be formally adopted in 1897 — and the State Bank was quietly rationalizing its smaller denominations ahead of that shift. The 3-rouble value, a fixture in Russian note-issuing since the assignat period, would not survive the reform era intact.

EZGB had produced state documents since 1818 and maintained tight vertical control over the entire process — paper manufacture, engraving, and printing under one roof. The watermark on this series was integral to the paper rather than applied, a distinction that mattered to counterfeit investigators of the period.