Description

In 2002 the Central Bank of the Russian Federation began an annual program that each year commemorates some of their historical towns on bi-metallic 10 Ruble coins. The coins picture the city and its arms on one side and has the standard Russian 10 Ruble obverse on the other. Unlike a lot of coin programs throughout the world there is no set regularity to the number of coins released each year in this series, with some years seeing 4 coins issued and other years only 3.

Veliky Novgorod (Novgorod the Great) is a city located in the northwestern part of European Russia, the capital of the Novgorod region.

Veliky Novgorod is one of the oldest towns of the Eastern Slavs. This settlement was first time mentioned in chronicles in 859. That time, it was a large trade center on the route from the Baltic to Byzantium. n 882, after the death of Rurik, Oleg became the ruler of Novgorod. As a regent of his infant son, Igor, he captured Kiev and moved the capital to it, thus uniting the two main centers of the Eastern Slavs. It was the beginning of the Kievan Rus state.

In 1136, the Novgorodians dismissed their prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. The year is seen as the traditional beginning of the Novgorod Republic. The city was able to invite and dismiss a number of princes over the next two centuries, but the princely office was never abolished and powerful princes, such as Alexander Nevsky. The city state controlled most of Europe's northeast, from lands east of today's Estonia to the Ural Mountains, making it one of the largest states in medieval Europe, although much of the territory north and east of Lakes Ladoga and Onega was sparsely populated and never organized politically.

Novgorod was never conquered by the Mongols during the Mongol invasion of Rus. The Mongol army turned back about 200 kilometers (120 mi) from the city, not because of the city's strength, but probably because the Mongol commanders did not want to get bogged down in the marshlands surrounding the city.

The city's downfall occurred partially as a result of its inability to feed its large population, making it dependent on the Vladimir-Suzdal region for grain. The main cities in the area, Moscow and Tver, used this dependence to gain control over Novgorod. Eventually Ivan III forcibly annexed the city to the Grand Duchy of Moscow in 1478. The Veche was dissolved and a significant part of Novgorod's population was either killed or deported.

In 1999, the city was officially renamed Veliky Novgorod (literally, Great Novgorod), thus partly reverting to its medieval title "Lord Novgorod the Great". This reduced the temptation to confuse Veliky Novgorod with Nizhny Novgorod, a larger city the other side of Moscow.