The ruble has been the Russian unit of currency for about years. It was The monetary reform system instituted by Peter the Great b ; that was a century ahead of most others in that it was based on the decimal system. The basic monetary unit, first coined in , was the silver ruble of kopecks.
Other silver coinage consisted of the poltina one-half ruble , polupoltina one-fourth ruble , grivennik ten kopecks , altyn three kopecks and kopeck. The amount of precious metal in a ruble varied over time. In a currency reform, Peter the Great standardized the ruble to 28 grams of silver. While ruble coins were silver, there were higher denominations minted of gold and platinum. By the end of the 18th century, the ruble was set to 4 zolotnik 21 dolya almost exactly equal to 18 grams of pure silver or 27 dolya almost exactly equal to 1.
In , the ruble was reduced from. This would be further reduced to. The gold 5 ruble weighed. This was actually nearly the same net weight of the issue at. The denominations were 3, 6, and 12 rubles.
On December 17th, , a new standard was adopted which did not change the silver ruble but reduced the gold content to 1. A 15 ruble gold coin was issued with a weight of. Effectively, this was a revaluation whereas the coin was the same weight as the 10 ruble, wihch had been issued since The 5 ruble weighing.
With the outbreak of World War I, the gold standard peg was dropped and the ruble fell in value, suffering from hyperinflation in the early s. With the founding of the Soviet Union in , the Russian ruble was replaced by the Soviet ruble. The pre-revolutionary Chervonetz was temporarily brought back into circulation from Before November 1, , the dollar cost 63 kopecks, but there was no opportunity to buy it at such a rate.
