3 Roubles The Ipatyevsky Monastery

The Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma has a particular claim on Russian dynastic history: it was here, in 1613, that sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov was persuaded — after considerable resistance from his mother — to accept the throne, ending the Time of Troubles and founding the dynasty that would rule for the next three centuries. The monastery effectively served as the birthplace of Romanov rule, which is precisely why it became a target for Soviet authorities, who closed it in 1919 and converted it into a museum.

Restoration began in the 1990s after the Russian Orthodox Church regained control of the complex.