500 Roubles Ekaterinodar

Ekaterinodar — present-day Krasnodar — served as the administrative center of the Kuban People's Republic and later the White Army's Volunteer Army command in the south. This note was issued under the Kuban Regional Government, one of several competing anti-Bolshevik authorities producing their own paper currency simultaneously across the former empire's southern territories in 1918. The proliferation of local issues was not merely expedient — it was a deliberate assertion of political legitimacy against Moscow.

The S498 series encompasses several signature and date varieties; the "E" suffix in the Pick reference designates a specific variant within that run, likely distinguished by signatory combination or minor typographic difference rather than a distinct printing.