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.

Smolensk is a city in Russia, the capital of the Smolensk region, located in the upper reaches of the Dnieper River.

There are several versions of the origin of the name of Smolensk. According to the first, it comes from the old Slavic name for black soil (black soil could color the water near the ancient settlement called Smolnya). Another version is about the Russian word “smola” meaning tar. There were a lot of pine trees in the area, so the settlement was an important center of resin processing and trade.

Smolensk is one of the oldest Russian towns. It was first mentioned in 862. Smolensk was the capital of the Slavic tribe Krivichy. In 882, it was conquered and annexed to the Old Russian state by Prince Oleg.

At that time the town played an important role because of its location on the famous way “from the Vikings to the Greeks” (people sailed on the Western Dvina River and dragged their boats along the ground to the Dnieper River in its upper reaches - thus traveling from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea).