Kopeck - Alexey Mikhailovich

These wire money kopecks — chekany — were produced by hammering a small silver rod into irregular planchets before striking, a technique inherited from medieval Muscovy and unchanged for over two centuries. Alexey Mikhailovich's reign saw their production severely disrupted by the Copper Riot of 1662, when his government attempted to pay war debts against Poland and Sweden by substituting copper wire money at silver face value. The resulting inflation and popular uprising forced a rapid reversal, but the silver issues of the early 1650s predate that crisis entirely — struck when the treasury was still solvent and the monetary system nominally intact.