500 Tengas / Ten'gov

The Bukhara People's Soviet Republic didn't formally displace the emirate until September 1920, meaning these treasury notes were issued under Emir Alim Khan during the last years of an effectively independent Central Asian state — one that had maintained nominal autonomy within the Russian imperial sphere since the 1868 protectorate treaty. With the collapse of Tsarist authority and the chaos of the Russian Civil War cutting off normal monetary supply chains, the emirate resorted to producing its own paper currency, something it had not previously needed to do at scale.

The Arabic-script denomination spelling variant between issues — "Tengas" versus "Ten'gov" — reflects uncertain Russian administrative influence on the typesetting, not a deliberate bilingual policy.