50 Roubles Himalayan Bear

This piece belongs to Russia's Red Book series, launched in 1993 to commemorate endangered species listed in the Soviet-era Red Data Book — a program that continued even as the federation itself was still reorganizing its monetary and governmental institutions following the 1991 collapse. The bimetallic format was a deliberate choice to deter counterfeiting at a moment when Russian currency infrastructure was under considerable strain.

The Himalayan bear (*Ursus thibetanus*) population in Russia is confined almost entirely to the Primorsky Krai region of the far east, where habitat pressure from logging has remained a documented concern since the 1980s.