3 Somoni

Tajikistan introduced the somoni in 2000 to replace the Tajik ruble, which had itself only existed since 1995 following the collapse of the Soviet ruble zone. The currency was named for Ismoil Somoni, the 9th-century Samanid ruler considered a founding figure of Tajik national identity — a pointed cultural statement from a country still rebuilding after a civil war that killed an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people between 1992 and 1997.

The 2001 date places this coin in the first full year of the somoni's circulation.