5 Manat Baku State University

Baku State University was founded in 1919, making the 2019 issue a centennial commemoration. Established under Soviet authority just months after the short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic collapsed, the university was one of the earliest institutions of higher education in the South Caucasus. It opened with instruction in Azerbaijani at a time when the Bolsheviks were simultaneously consolidating control over the region — an awkward founding circumstance the institution has never entirely shed from its official histories.