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5 Roubles Baku
| Issuer | Baku City Council (Бакинская Городская Управа) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
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| Reference(s) | P#S723 |
| Obverse description | Blue on green and red underprint. The face is dominated by two ornate arched vignettes in an Oriental architectural style, each enclosing a decorative calligraphic device, with the numeral 5 at left and right. A central panel carries the authorization text in Cyrillic, with the issuer's title БАКИНСКАЯ ГОРОДСКАЯ УПРАВА printed in a banner across the top and РУБЛЕЙ in large Cyrillic letters below it. Two manuscript signatures of the City Head and a Council member appear at the foot of the note. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Green tint overall with a large central heraldic cartouche formed by elaborate acanthus-leaf scrollwork in white relief, enclosing a shield bearing the city arms above the bold denomination inscription 5 РУБ. 5. The numeral 5 and the legend ПЯТЬ РУБЛЕЙ appear repeatedly in the side margins, and the anti-counterfeiting warning ПОДѢЛКА ПРЕСЛѢДУЕТСЯ ЗАКОНОМЪ is printed twice along the lower border. |
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| Comments |
Baku in 1918 was one of the most violently contested cities in the collapsing Russian imperial periphery — briefly governed by the Baku Commune under Stepan Shaumian, then seized by Ottoman-backed Azerbaijani forces in September, then briefly retaken before the British arrived in November. The City Council's emergency small-denomination notes were issued into this chaos, filling the void left by the collapse of Tsarist and Provisional Government currency supplies. Municipal bodies across the former empire improvised similarly, but few did so under such acute military and ethnic violence.
The Baku Commune's leadership — including Shaumian — was executed by the so-called Social-Revolutionary government in the same year, the "26 Baku Commissars" shot in the Transcaspian steppe. These municipal notes predate that event but exist entirely within its orbit.