The Russian rouble
Currency · RUB · ₽ · 1 country
Article 75 of Russia's constitution names the rouble as the country's monetary unit, gives the Bank of Russia the sole right to issue money and forbids any other currency. The present rouble dates from 1998, when one new rouble took the place of 1,000 old ones. Its sign, a Cyrillic Р with a crossbar, was approved on 11 December 2013.
The sign
The ₽ is a Cyrillic Р, the first letter of рубль, with a horizontal stroke. The idea of a sign dates from the 1990s and stalled after 1998; this design circulated unofficially from 1 August 2007, and the Bank of Russia approved it on 11 December 2013 after a public vote. Unicode 7.0 encoded it as U+20BD.
- ISO code
- RUB
- ISO number
- 643
- Subunit
- kopeck, 1/100
- ISO name
- Russian Ruble
An amount, written out
₽1,234.50
- ₽1,234.50English
- 1 234,50 ₽RussianRussia
In English the sign comes before the amount. Where the Russian rouble is used, it comes after the amount in Russia.
The sign in code
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, UTF-8
- HTML
₽₽- CSS
content: "\20BD";- JavaScript
"\u20BD"- UTF-8
0xE2 0x82 0xBD- UTF-16
0x20BD- UTF-32
0x000020BD
Where the Russian rouble is the official currency
Russia is the member. Goznak prints the notes, the Moscow and Saint Petersburg mints strike the coins, and since 2023 a digital rouble runs through Bank of Russia wallets.
About the Russian rouble
Who may issue money in Russia
The constitution settles it. Under Article 75 the Bank of Russia is the sole issuer of currency, and the introduction and issue of any other currency on Russian territory is prohibited. Goznak prints the notes; the Moscow and Saint Petersburg mints strike the coins.
A digital form was added in 2023. The State Duma adopted the law on the digital rouble on 11 July that year, after testing that began in January 2022, and it was signed on 24 July 2023. The Bank of Russia runs wallets for financial institutions, which in turn open wallets for their clients.
Where the word rouble comes from
One account derives it from the verb рубить, rubit, to cut or chop, because a rouble was a piece cut from a silver grivna. Others hold that the rouble was never a part of the grivna but another name for it: a 13th century birch bark document from Novgorod uses both words for 204 grams of silver. The name would then come from some cutting step in casting the pieces, a technique nobody has described exactly. A third version takes it from рубец, rubets, the seam left on the metal.
The kopeck has a clearer source. The Novgorod denga showed a rider with a spear, копьё, kop'yo, and the coin became known by it. Several languages spoken in Russia call the rouble something else entirely, som or sum in Turkic languages, or manat, from the Russian moneta.
How the rouble came to hold a hundred kopecks
After the monetary reform of 1534 one accounting rouble equalled 100 Novgorod dengi or 200 Moscow ones. Tsar Alexis tried silver rouble coins struck from imported joachimsthalers in 1654 and 1655, but they weighed less than the nominal rouble, and after the Copper Riot of 1662 the old system came back.
Peter the Great reformed the coinage in 1704. His silver rouble weighed 28.1 grams at 72% fineness, and he divided it into 100 copper kopecks rather than 200 Moscow dengi.
What replaced the Soviet rouble
The Soviet rouble, issued by the State Bank of the USSR, replaced the imperial rouble in 1922 and outlived the Soviet Union. Russia issued its own coins in 1992 and notes in the name of the Bank of Russia in 1993, at par with the Soviet money, under the code RUR. Eleven post-Soviet states used the Russian rouble in a rouble zone, and the Bank's exchange of banknotes on Russian territory at the end of 1993 began its final collapse. Tajikistan held on until 1995.
The rouble was redenominated in 1998. One new rouble, code RUB, replaced 1,000 old ones, and Soviet coins issued from 1961 to 1991 could be exchanged too. The change came on the brink of the financial crisis of 1998.
Since 1991 the notes have carried no portraits of real people. The 500 rouble note shows a statue of Peter I and the 1,000 rouble a statue of Yaroslav, and the Bank of Russia's catalogue lists the 200 rouble note from 2017.
Common questions
Questions about the Russian rouble
What does the ₽ sign stand for?
It is the Cyrillic letter Р, the first letter of рубль, crossed by a horizontal bar. The Bank of Russia approved it on 11 December 2013 after a vote on its website in which it took 61% of more than 284,000 votes. Critics warned that readers of the Latin alphabet would take the letter for a P, and the Bank rejected the concern. Between the 16th and the 18th centuries Russia had an older rouble sign built from the letters Р and У.
Why did Russia knock three zeros off the rouble?
In 1998 the Russian rouble was redenominated to make the old notes less unwieldy. One new rouble, code RUB and number 643, was exchanged for 1,000 old roubles, code RUR. Soviet coins from 1961 to 1991 also qualified for exchange. The Bank of Russia had introduced its own notes only in 1993, replacing the Soviet rouble at par, and the redenomination of 1998 landed on the brink of that year's financial crisis.
How many kopecks make a rouble?
One hundred, a division Peter the Great fixed in 1704 when he split his silver rouble into copper kopecks. Kopeck coins are now rarely used, and the name goes back to the rider with a spear, kop'yo, on the old Novgorod denga.