5 Roubles - Pavel I

Paul I ordered this gold issue as part of a deliberate break from his mother Catherine's monetary policies — he despised nearly everything she had done, and the coinage was no exception. The design was stripped of the imperial imagery she favored, replaced with a spare, almost austere format that reflected Paul's idiosyncratic tastes and his fascination with Maltese chivalric order.

His reign lasted just four years and three months before he was strangled in his bedroom at St. Michael's Castle in March 1801, almost certainly with the knowledge of his son Alexander. Short reign, thin survival numbers in better grades.