Alphabets used on the coins of the ex-Soviet Asian republics

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As part of the Soviet Union, from the 1930s onwards the Soviet republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia were mostly forced to use the Cyrillic alphabet. After the fall of the Soviet Union, they were free to make their own choices.

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Abkhazia



Abkhazia, "10 apsars", collector piece dated 2009.


Abkhazia used to be an Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, within the Georgian Socialist Soviet Republic. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was part of Georgia, but in 2008 it broke away with Russia's help. It now calls itself the Republic of Abkhazia, but it is recognised by only a few countries. It uses the Russian ruble, but it has issued a few official collector pieces in recent years, denominated in "apsars". The text on these pieces appears in the Cyrillic alphabet.

[<k>]

Armenia



Armenia, 10 dram, 2004.

So far as I can tell, Armenia was never required to use the Cyrillic alphabet under Soviet rule, and in fact it has its own unique Armenian alphabet, which is used on Armenian coins.

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Azerbaijan



Azerbaijan, 5 qapik, 2006.



Azerbaijan, 50 qapik, 1993.

Under the Soviets Azerbaijan was required to use the Cyrillic alphabet, but on independence it re-adopted the Azeri alphabet. It is an amended version of the Latin alphabet and is similar to the Turkish alphabet. The schwa -  "Ə" - is one letter that is not familiar to most Europeans, even though it is the most common sound in the English language.

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Georgia



Georgia, 1 tetri, 1993.





Georgia, common obverse of the 1993 circulation coinage.

Like Armenia, Georgia has its own unique alphabet, which is used on all its coins. Georgia was never forced to switch to the Cyrillic alphabet under Soviet rule. On the coin shown above, the country name also appears in English, in the Latin alphabet.

 

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Kazakhstan



Kazakhstan, 50 tenge, 2011.

The country was required to use the Cyrillic alphabet under Soviet rule.

It has retained the alphabet since independence.

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Kyrgyzstan



Kyrgyzstan, 10 som, 2009.


The country was required to use the Cyrillic alphabet under Soviet rule, and it has retained the alphabet since independence.

[<k>]

Nagorno-Karabakh



Nagorno-Karabakh, 1 dram, 2004. Collector piece only.


The country broke away from Azerbaijan in 1991, and it regards itself as independent, though it is recognised by very few states. Ethnically the population is largely Armenian. The country has issued a few collector pieces, whose text appears in English, in the Latin alphabet. In practice the country uses Armenian coinage.

[<k>]

South Ossetia



South Ossetia, 10 roubles, 2005.

South Ossetia was part of Georgia during the Soviet Union and after. In 2008 it broke away from Georgia with Russia's help. It now calls itself the Republic of South Ossetia, but it is recognised by only a few countries. It uses the Russian ruble. In 2005 the Central Bank of the Republic of South Ossetia issued a 10 ruble collector piece, whose text was in the Cyrillic alphabet.

[<k>]

Tajikistan





Tajikistan: 1 somoni and 5 dirham, 2011.


Under Soviet rule the Tajiks were forced to use the Cyrillic alphabet, and they have continued to use it since independence.

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Turkmenistan



Turkmenistan, common obverse of the 1993 circulation coinage.

Under the Soviets Turkmenistan was required to use the Cyrillic alphabet.

However, since independence it has used the Turkmen alphabet.

That is a Latin alphabet based on the Turkish alphabet.

[<k>]

Uzbekistan



Uzbekistan, 1 tiyn, 1994.

Under the Soviets Uzbekistan was required to use the Cyrillic alphabet.

This alphabet was retained at first upon independence.



Uzbekistan, 50 som, 2001.

Since 2001, Uzbekistan has used the Latin alphabet on its circulation coins.

[FosseWay]

The schwa -  "Ə" - is one letter that is not familiar to most Europeans, even though it is the most common sound in the English language!

There is no symbol for that sound in the standard Russian Cyrillic alphabet either. I note that the same symbol (derived from the International Phonetic Alphabet) is used in the Abkhazian variant of Cyrillic.

The denomination side of the South Ossetian "coin" pictured above is truly bizarre. The final two letters (ЛЬ, L and the soft sign in Latin) are capitals but the first three (руб) are lower-case. I would wager that it has been designed by someone with minimal knowledge of Russian. A Georgian, perhaps? 

To add to the tour of the unbreakable union of freeborn republics, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) have always used their variants of the Latin alphabet, both before, during and after Soviet rule. (The same is true of Finland, though its period of Russian domination was under the tsars.)

Belarus and Ukraine use(d) their variants of Cyrillic, both as Soviet republics and independent states. Both variants are unsurprisingly more similar to Russian Cyrillic than, say, the Kazakh alphabet is, but a surefire way of telling that a text isn't in Russian is the presence of the letter I. This was abolished in the Russian spelling reform of 1917 but not in Belarusian or Ukrainian. There are other differences which I won't go into.

Both Belarusian and Ukrainian have at times used the Latin alphabet, though not AFAIK on coins or banknotes. Some elements of the current Belarusian opposition use Latin as a way of showing their greater identification with Poland than with Russia. It wouldn't surprise me if something similar occurs in Ukraine, especially under current circumstances. In Ukraine, parts of the western half of the country, as far as Kiev and the Pripyat' and Dnepr rivers, was at various times under the control of Poland and then the Austro-Hungarian empire. I have a map of the area north and west of Kiev from the turn of the 20th century where the placenames are spelt as if in Polish. The name "Czernobyl" stands out in particular.

[Figleaf]

Go back in time and more characters crop up. Most coins from Samarqand, Khiva and Boukhara (now Uzbekistan) are in Arabic writing, but some are in Greek, Bactrian or Chinese script.

Peter

[davidrj]

I seem to remember reading somewhere, that pre revolutionary Russian cyrillic had more characters in its alphabet than are  in use today

david