Kopeck - Peter I

Peter I's wire kopecks — the archaic "cheshuykas" hand-struck on flattened snippets of silver wire — were already an anachronism by 1705, a medieval technology still running alongside the tsar's forcibly modernized empire. Peter tolerated them only briefly; his 1718 decree formally ended their production in favor of machine-struck coinage from the new Kadashevsky and Krasny mints. The 1705 issues fall squarely in the transitional period when both systems operated simultaneously, the old wire coins still trusted by a peasant population deeply suspicious of the new round kopecks.