One hundred and twenty-nine bronze figures, rulers, clergy, generals, writers and artists, encircle the Millennium of Russia monument in Novgorod; the tiers of sculpture add up to a portrait gallery of ten centuries. It was chosen for one of the Soviet five-rouble coins of 1988.

The monument was unveiled in 1862 for the millennium of Rurik’s calling. It was the most expensive monument of its time in the Russian Empire: about 400,000 roubles, raised mostly by public subscription, with some 100 tonnes of bronze. The coin’s reverse shows the silhouette of the orb on its bell-shaped pedestal and the legend «NOVGOROD PAMYATNIK «TYSYACHELETIE ROSSII»».

The coin belongs to the first trio of the series of copper-nickel five-rouble pieces with historic and architectural monuments, alongside the Bronze Horseman and St Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. The mintage was 2 million, most of it for circulation; a coin just like this could have turned up in a purse in the late 1980s.

Grade F-VF: wear from circulation is even, the tiers of sculpture in the relief are softened, but the monument’s silhouette and the legends read confidently. It is a complete, honest specimen to fill the 1988 slot in the series.

Besides this coin, VPcoins offers other issues from the same era and region.