500 Manat Mother - Gurbansoltan eje

Gurbansoltan eje was the mother of Saparmurat Niyazov — self-styled "Turkmenbashi" — who died in the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake, one of the deadliest seismic events in Soviet history, killing an estimated 110,000 people in a city of roughly 130,000. Niyazov, then an infant, was raised in a state orphanage. His decades-long personality cult transformed her into a near-mythological national figure; he renamed the month of April after her.

This coin was issued the same year Niyazov declared her name an official month of the Turkmen calendar.