5 Hryven Nikolai Gogol

Issued on the bicentennial of Gogol's birth, this coin appeared during a period of notable tension between Russia and Ukraine over the writer's cultural ownership — both nations claim him as a native son, a dispute that has only sharpened since. Born in Poltava governorate, Gogol wrote almost exclusively in Russian, spent much of his adult life in St. Petersburg and Rome, and died in Moscow, yet his Ukrainian origins and early folk-inflected work have made him a recurring figure on Ukrainian commemorative programs.