50 Roubles Assumption Cathedral, Moscow

Part of the Soviet "Outstanding Monuments of Architecture" series, this issue appeared in 1989 — a period when the USSR was actively courting hard currency from Western collectors and investors as Gorbachev's government struggled with a deepening fiscal crisis. The coins were never intended for domestic circulation; they were sold through Vneshposyltorg, the Soviet foreign trade agency, explicitly to generate foreign exchange reserves.

The Assumption Cathedral itself served as the coronation church of the tsars from Ivan III onward — a pointed choice for a state that had spent seven decades officially suppressing the Orthodox Church.