5 Kopecks Altai

The Altai regional issues of the Civil War period were products of a chaotic administrative patchwork — Soviet authorities in western Siberia were improvising monetary supply well into 1923, long after the Bolsheviks had nominally consolidated power. The Altai Gubernia issues are among the later regional emissions, printed under conditions where controlled currency distribution from Moscow was still unreliable across the interior.

Perforation as a security feature on a 5 kopeck note is a telling detail — at this denomination, counterfeiting was hardly the real threat. More likely it served as a control mechanism for distinguishing valid stock from voided or reserve sheets.