5 Roubles Slutsk

Zemstvo currency of this type emerged in late 1918 as the Bolshevik administration collapsed across much of Belorussia, leaving local self-governing bodies — the zemstva — to fill the vacuum with whatever scrip they could produce. The Slutsk Uyezd Zemstvo was among dozens of such bodies that issued emergency obligations backed by nothing more than local institutional authority, which was itself precarious.

The handstamp security feature is telling: these notes were produced hastily, without access to specialist printing equipment, and the stamp was the only practical authentication method available. Counterfeiting was less the concern than simple repudiation by the next administration to take control of the town.