Money of Kievan Rus'
Together with the emergence of the first ancient settlements in the late 8th - early 9th century, foreign coins appeared on Slavic lands of Eastern Europe.
The formation of money circulation started when active trade in Northern and Eastern Europe with the countries of the Caliphate began.
Eastern European countries, deprived of large ore reserves of monetary metal, actively imported silver.
Old East Slavic mentions of a щьляг (shchĭlyag) or скълѧѕь (skŭlędzĭ), probably derived from West Germanic schilling, shilling or shekel (a pound in Hebrew), likely refer to dirhams.
[2] In the northern regions, Western European denarius of German, English and Scandinavian coinage came to replace dirhams.
At the turn of the 10th - 11th centuries at the time of Vladimir the Great and Svyatopolk was made an attempt to stamp Rus' coins.
[3][4] It has been thought that these names derived from various types of fur that these coins could exchanged for, as the word kuna (Church Slavonic: кѹна́, modern Russian and Ukrainian: ку́на) originally meant a marten-skin.
[3] For example, in the Primary Chronicle, Oleg the Wise, prince of Kiev, is reported sub anno 6391 (883) as having subjugated the Derevlians, and imposing upon them 'the tribute of a black marten-skin apiece'.
[5][a] Similarly sub anno 6488 (980) is recorded: 'And Volodimir' said to them: 'Wait, until for you the kunȳ (translated as "marten-skins"[7] or "money"[4]) will be collected in a month'.
Kuna is a weight and monetary unit, as well as the name of the coins used in Kievan Rus' and the Russian lands from the 10th to 15th centuries.
Proponents of the so-called fur theory of monetary circulation in Kievan Rus' consider the Veksha to be tanned squirrel skin, which was used simultaneously with its coin counterpart (part of the silver Arab dirham).
Cuted half of the Arab dirham was called Rezana, that is, 1 cut was equal to about 1.38 grams of 900th sample silver.
[13] The zolotnik (also zlatnik, in both cases sounding like a Sultan - whose face might have been engraved) was the first gold coin, minted in Kiev in the late 10th and early 11th centuries, shortly after the Christianization of Kievan Rus' by Vladimir the Great.
In the 11th century, judging by the findings of these coins in the treasures in Pinsk and Kienburg, Zlatniks also participated in international money circulation.
Srebreniks were issued in small quantities and not for long, that's why they did not have a big impact on monetary circulation in Kievan Rus'.
After the extinction of the inflow of eastern coins to Rus' due to the weakening of the Caliphate, they were replaced by commodity-money.
In some cases, even the cowry shells, which in Siberia retained their value as a small change coin until the beginning of the 19th century.
[9] Starting with the establishment of the Tatar-Mongol yoke, the economy of the Rus' principalities is increasingly acquiring natural features.
Own silver deposits were discovered in Russia only in the 18th century, therefore the country's monetary economy depended entirely on the influx of this metal, primarily in the form of a coin, from abroad.
In the 12th century, this influx began to shorten from the western direction (presumably due to the strengthening of the German knight orders in the Baltic States and the beginning of regular hostilities between them and the western principalities; see the article “Ostsiedlung”), and in the 13th century from the eastern (presumably, this was caused by the Tatar-Mongol invasion).
The merchants who bought the consignment of the spindle whorls made a considerable way with them, sold them in different lands.
[22] During the coinless period, various silver grivnas existed in Kievan Rus', but the main types were Kiev ingots of the 11th to 13th centuries in the shape of an elongated hexagon weighing 135–169 g and Novgorod - longitudinal bars with a stable average weight of 197 g, preserved in circulation until the 15th century.
The scientist stated that the role of money for small payments could be fulfilled by some uniform and widespread products in Kievan Rus' - such as crystal and cornelian beads, often marked in hoards with coins, multi-colored glass bracelets, and ovruch slate spindle whorls.
These spindle whorls were repeatedly met in hoards along with ingots, and during excavations in Pskov, for example, they were found in a wallet with Western European coins.
When V. L. Yanin combined the distribution maps of glass bracelets and slate spindles whorls, and also plotted the boundaries of the monetary circulation area before the Mongol invasion, their detailed coincidence was discovered.
