In recent days, the Russian currency rate has started to slide down again. We will not plunge into the jungle of macroeconomics and find out which sectors of the economy and economic entities benefit from a weak ruble and who do not. And should I buy dollars now. And how long will the weakening of the national currency continue. But we propose to take a look at a retrospective of the ruble's history - and find out when it was strong.
Start
The first historically reliable mentions of the ruble are found in the Novgorod birch bark letters of the 13th century, but it was a counting currency that did not have a physical form. However, the historian Ivan Kondratyev wrote in his book The Gray Old Times of Moscow, first published in 1893 and reprinted in 1996, 2006 and 2008, that the ruble is a piece of a silver hryvnia. By the way, until the XIV century in Russia there was a so-called "coinless period", when no coins were minted, and money was silver ingots of a certain length and weight, there were Kiev and Novgorod hryvnias, slightly different in weight. Later, each more or less serious prince minted his own coins, approximately the same in weight in different principalities, with the same denomination, but having rather complicated internal exchange rates. A single national monetary system appeared only during the reign of Grand Duchess Elena Glinskaya, mother of Ivan IV and regent in his youth. It happened in 1535.
The first ruble was minted under Alexei Mikhailovich, the second tsar from the Romanov dynasty, in the second half of the 17th century.
Rollercoaster
Nicknamed the Quietest, Alexei Mikhailovich, with his financial and monetary policy, managed to bring to the Copper Riot on July 25 (August 4) 1662.
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The ruble has been seriously strengthened under the next sovereign - Peter the Great. Despite the Northern War, which required serious money, Peter followed the ruble exchange rate. The strength of the ruble under him was based on the development of the Russian economy, both through the growth of industry and through trade and agriculture. This was largely facilitated by the economically literate circle of Peter. So, one of his associates, Ivan Pososhkov, adhered to the ideas of mercantilism, advanced at that time, and wrote in 1724 the economic and theoretical work "A Treatise on Poverty and Wealth".
However, the heirs of Peter, especially Catherine II, who introduced paper money into circulation and turned on the printing press without a twinge of conscience, again brought down the ruble. As the doctor of economic sciences Nikita Krichevsky writes in the book "Antiskrepa", in 1792 alone, the budget deficit amounted to 15.6 million rubles, or 26.6% of government spending. By the end of the 18th century, a paper ruble was worth 68 kopecks in silver. The total public debt of Russia has reached 216 million rubles, which is equal to three annual state budget revenues.
In 1796, Emperor Paul I ascended the throne, becoming the first crown bearer in Russian history who deliberately fought inflation. This is mentioned, for example, by the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky. Paul I considered the discrepancy between the exchange rates of the paper and metal ruble as a challenge to the state and an obstacle to the economy. At the beginning of his reign, Paul I exponentially burned more than 5 million rubles in banknotes on Palace Square. The exchange of paper and silver cash began in the two capitals at rates printed daily in newspapers and posted on special notice boards.
Paul I planned to reduce the money supply of paper rubles annually by 6 million, to put new money into circulation, but the conspirators interrupted his plans and life in 1800.
Then hard times came, Russia waged several wars at once, survived the Napoleonic invasion, by the end of which 25 kopecks in silver were given for the ruble. The situation was rectified only in 1843, followed by a decade of a strong ruble. New successful efforts to strengthen the Russian currency were undertaken in 1881 under the Minister of Finance Bunge, as follows from the collection of documents of the Ministry of Finance 1802-1902, part one.
Golden time of the Russian ruble
For centuries, money circulation in Russia was based on a bimetallic standard: the account was in copper and silver coins. Under Count Sergei Witte, who was first finance minister and then prime minister, Russia is switching to a monometallic standard based on gold. Gold rubles with the profile of Nicholas II are becoming an international means of payment, as evidenced by the published archives of the Ministry of Finance 1802-1902, part two. The power of the gold Nikolaev ruble was so great that in the early years the Soviet government minted it to pay for foreign purchases, and the counterparties willingly accepted the gold ruble as a means of payment.
The First World War, the Revolution, the Civil War brought down the Russian economy. In 1918, out of almost 14 thousand nationalized enterprises, more than a third did not work, writes Yuri Zhukov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. War communism with requisitions and surplus appropriation did not contribute to the flourishing of the economy, and the NEP was introduced by Lenin's decision in 1921. The economy began to grow, which made it possible to introduce in 1923 a gold ducat, the prototype of which was the Nikolaev gold ruble. And it was the last Russian convertible currency until the early 90s of the XX century. The USSR, which was closed within its borders, experienced three monetary reforms, 1947, 1961, 1991, each time leading to the devaluation of the ruble. The stories about the "dollar for 63 kopecks" have nothing to do with reality - it was an artificial course,established for ideological rather than economic reasons. Even within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), it was not the Soviet ruble that circulated, but a conventional unit - the “transferable ruble”, approved by the agreement on international settlements of the CMEA member countries on October 22, 1963. He had no physical form. The transferable ruble is described in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, volume 30, 3rd edition.
But the gold chervonets, although it fell out of use, was popular, and the State Bank of the USSR in 1975-1982 minted coins outwardly similar to the chervonets, but with new dates.
Konstantin Baranovsky