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The ruble (Russian рубль, French-derived transliteration rouble) is the currency of the Russian Federation (and formerly, of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire). One ruble can be divided into 100 kopeks (копе́йка). The ISO 4217 currency code for the ruble is now RUB; the former code, RUR, referres to the currency prior to 1997 denomination.
In Russian, a folk name for "ruble", tselkovyi (wholesome), is known, which is a shortening of the "tselkovyi ruble", i.e. a wholesome, uncut ruble. A practice of cutting precious metal coins was historically wide-spread throughout the world. A small chunk was cut from a coin by its current holder before the coin was tendered at the full value. Over a period the coins had become obviously smaller, but legally still carried the full face value. Thus wholesome adjective was needed to distinguish the uncut coins.
The ruble has been the Russian unit of currency for many centuries. The word "ruble" is derived from the Russian verb рубить, rubit, i.e., to chop. Historically, "ruble" was a piece of a certain weight chopped off a silver ingot (grivna), hence the name.
The word kopek/kopeyka derives from the russian kop'yo (копьё) - a spear. The first kopek coins carried the Moscow coat of arms with Saint George slaying a dragon with a spear.
Over time the amount of precious metal in a ruble varied. Peter I during a currency reform standardized the ruble coin in 1704 to 28 gram of silver. While ruble coins were mostly silver, sometimes they were minted of gold, and some 19th century coins were platinum. The gold ruble introduced in 1897 was equal to 0.774235 g of gold. The Soviet ruble of 1961 was formally equal to 0.987412 g of gold, but the exchange for gold was never available to general public. Rubles are no longer linked to a gold standard.
Ten ruble coins are sometimes informally named chervonets (черво́нец). Formerly it was a 3-ruble gold coin and later a 10-ruble bill.
All Russian paper money is currently printed at the state-owned factory Goznak, which was organized on June 6, 1919 and has continued to operate ever since.
Ruble in Russian/Soviet subdivisions
In Soviet period, the ruble had it own name in official languages of the Soviet Union. The value of all banknotes had the value printed in the languages of all Soviet Republics. This naming is preserved in modern Russia. Example: Tatar for ruble is Sum. The current names of several currencies of Central Asia are simply the local names for rouble.
The name of the currency in the official languages of the 15 republics:
- Russian: рубль
- Ukrainian: карбованец
- Belarusian: рубель
- Uzbek: сўм
- Kazakh: сом
- Georgian: მანეთი
- Azerbaijani: манат
- Lithuanian: rublis
- Moldavian: рублэ
- Latvian: rublis
- Kyrgyz: сом
- Tajik: сўм
- Armenian: ռուբլի
- Turkmen: манат
- Estonian: rubla