In 1499 Alisher Navoi wrote the treatise «The Judgement of Two Languages», arguing that Turkic was in no way inferior to Persian as a language of poetry, and proved it with his own verse. This 1991 commemorative rouble was issued for the 550th anniversary of the poet’s birth, with his portrait and the years 1441–1501 on the reverse.

Born in Herat, Navoi was a friend and vizier of Sultan Husayn Bayqara and a patron of scholars and artists, but his main legacy is his poetry in Chagatai, the Old Uzbek literary language. His «Khamsa», five poems written in answer to the classic Persian «Quintet» of Nizami, was the first «Khamsa» in a Turkic language. In Uzbekistan Navoi is revered as the founder of the national literature.

The coin was designed by artist Alexander Kolodkin and sculptor Alexander Baklanov. The rouble is one of the six commemorative coins of 1991, where it stands beside the coin honouring Nizami himself.

AU-UNC grade: signs of circulation are minimal, at most a light rub on the highest points of the relief, with most of the lustre intact. A Navoi and Nizami pair in this condition makes an elegant story for a collection devoted to the poets of the East.

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