20 Rubles – Russian Federation

In 1993, the Russian Federation was engulfed in a severe monetary crisis, a direct consequence of the economic shock therapy and price liberalization begun in 1992. Hyperinflation, running at an annual rate of over 800%, was eroding savings and wages, while the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), under pressure from industrial lobbies and parliament, continued to print massive amounts of rubles to finance government deficits and provide cheap credits to failing state enterprises. This flood of money, chasing a collapsing supply of goods, created a self-reinforcing cycle of price increases and a dramatic loss of confidence in the ruble, which was still using Soviet-era designs.

The situation reached a critical point in July 1993 when the government of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and CBR Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko launched a sudden and confiscatory currency reform. Aimed at curbing inflation in other former Soviet states and reasserting Moscow's monetary control, the reform declared that pre-1993 Soviet and Russian ruble banknotes would be withdrawn from circulation. Citizens were given a narrow two-week window to exchange limited amounts of old cash for new Russian ruble notes, with severe restrictions on sums for non-residents. The move was widely perceived as a brutal de facto confiscation of cash savings, particularly affecting the populations of other post-Soviet republics still using the ruble zone.

The 1993 reform effectively dismantled the crumbling ruble zone, forcing independent currencies in neighboring states. While it succeeded in temporarily tightening the money supply and consolidating the Russian ruble, it came at a tremendous social cost, further devastating public trust in state institutions and the currency itself. The fundamental drivers of inflation—soft budget constraints and directed credits—remained largely unaddressed, meaning the stabilization was short-lived. The crisis of 1993 set the stage for the even more traumatic hyperinflation and monetary collapse that would culminate in the ruble's redenomination in 1998.