3 Roubles THE SCARLET FLOWER

Part of the Bank of Russia's long-running fairy tale series, this issue commemorates "The Scarlet Flower," a story first published by Sergei Aksakov in 1858 after he reportedly heard it told by his family's housekeeper, Pelageya, during his childhood in the late eighteenth century. The tale predates and closely parallels Beauty and the Beast, though Aksakov scholars argue it draws on a distinct Russian folkloric tradition rather than Villeneuve's French source material.