[InABunkerUnderSF]

Interesting. The rest of the lettering on the note is in Cyrillic. Why would "crossed "S' use the roman alphabet?

It's dated 1918. Note the two headed eagle on the obverse. I think this is a Czarist note.

My Russian isn't that good. Any Russian speakers on the thread who can help?

[Post Toasties]

It’s definitely post Czarist, since they were deposed in 1917. These Soviet bank notes were designed after the Czarist reign and issued from later in 1917 until, I understand, 1922.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Then again, maybe this will help clarify.

It's from "The Life, Times & Confessions of Victor Serge" at : http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/rbr/rbr4_serge.html

The Winter of 1919 was a cold and bitter one. Civil War raged, exiled Russian Aristocrats traded currency with the Tsar still on it, while the Bolsheviks printed it like it was going out of fashion and used it to procure arms. That's right, the Bolsheviks printed money with the Tsar's image on it. As Serge says "we used to print them for the poor fools (Russian Exiles)"

So it may have been printed by the Bolsheviks but still retained all of it's Czarist iconography.

[Greysard]

Interesting. The rest of the lettering on the note is in Cyrillic. Why would "crossed "S' use the roman alphabet?

It doesn't. There is no 'S', it's just an abstract geometric pattern. Consequently this whole thread has only a marginal entertainment value. Many posters already pointed out the real origin of swastika:

Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period. An ancient symbol, it occurs mainly in the cultures that are in modern day India and the surrounding area, sometimes as a geometrical motif (as in the Roman Republic and Empire) and sometimes as a religious symbol. It was long widely used in major world religions such as shamanism.

The 1918 note was probably printed by Lenin and his gang using Czar's designs because Bolsheviks were kind of busy, Civil War and all that. Note that the text says "This bill can be freely exchanged for gold" - that offer didn't last.

On the other side (in your image) the text just says "Forgery is illegal." The two-headed eagle was Czar's symbol for a long time (and now it is back.)

The text is in "old" alphabet, before 1918, when the letter "ѣ" was eliminated by Bolsheviks. It wasn't really necessary anyhow, being indistinguishable from "E" :-)

[Jabba the Nutt]

The Soviet coup took place in November 1918. I can't believe that within two months, they put out their own currency. It would take longer than that to design it, make the plates and print the notes.

You're probably right, the Soviets wouldn't use the two-headed eagle.

Russia's coat of arms