5 Roubles Buryatia

Part of Russia's ongoing "Monuments of Architecture" series, this piece commemorates the Ivolginsky Datsan, the spiritual center of Russian Buddhism located near Ulan-Ude. The datsan was established in 1945 — a remarkable concession by Stalin's government, widely interpreted as a reward to the Buryat people for wartime loyalty and military service. Soviet religious policy had otherwise been systematically destroying or repurposing Buddhist institutions across the region since the 1930s purges, during which hundreds of Buryat lamas were executed.

The copper composition, shared across this commemorative run, was a deliberate cost-reduction measure introduced as the series expanded rapidly after 2010.