Pulo - Vasily I Dmitriyevich Bird right / Arabic legend imitation

Vasily I's pulos occupy a peculiar administrative niche: copper fractions circulating beneath the silver denga system, used for small transactions at a time when Moscow was still consolidating control over rival principalities and navigating tribute obligations to the Golden Horde. The Arabic legend here is not functional — it imitates Tatar script without conveying readable text, a holdover from decades of Mongol monetary influence on Rus coinage.

The practice of copying Horde inscriptions without understanding them had become purely conventional by the early fifteenth century, persisting on copper long after silver issues had abandoned the pretense.