Denga - Vasily I Dmitriyevich Beast right / Head left

Vasily I ruled Moscow from 1389 to 1425, a period during which Muscovite coinage was still deeply influenced by — and in some issues technically subordinate to — the Golden Horde monetary system. The denga denomination itself derives from the Tatar "dang." Many Moscow issues of this reign carry Tatar-script tamgas on the reverse as acknowledgment of Horde suzerainty, though the degree of that subordination shifted considerably after Timur's defeat of Tokhtamysh in 1395 weakened Horde authority over the Russian principalities.

Hrossman-Pennell II #1351 places this among the more localized Moscow types, struck from hand-cut dies with the irregularity that characterizes virtually all wire-money predecessors in the region.