It was a long time ago… the Central Bank of Russia held a competition to create a headset sign of the Russian ruble. Then the sign was approved by the government, and now we use it. Whether anyone likes him or not is no longer important.
We also participated, but our sign was not chosen, and the memories remained. And so we decided to publish everything. So, a little history…
«In the recent history of Russia, various unofficial contests for such a symbol have been held more than once. Back in 1998, the «Ruble Sign» competition was held, for which about 100 variants from six countries were presented. Then it was not the sign that was recognized as the winner, but the image of the ruble found in letters and books in the XVII century, discovered by the Belarusian historian Ivan Sinchuk. The image resembles a seven and, as the Russian historian Ekaterina Vorobyova later established, represents the cursive letters P and Y, with the letter P rotated 90 degrees. Most of the drawings offered for the contest beat either the letter R («ruble») or the inverted R — B, a hard sign, the Slavic «er» — as a hint of the hardness of the currency. There were also more exotic options, for example, pictures resembling a treble clef, a flag on a shaft, crosses of a bizarre configuration, a roll…»
«The State Duma has approved a law on the graphic representation of the ruble. Amendments to the Law «On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation» were approved today in the last, third reading. According to the law, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation must establish a special designation of the ruble in the form of a graphic sign. To select a graphic sign — an image of the ruble, more than 100 options have been proposed, from which the Central Bank will have to choose and determine which sign to designate the ruble. The author of the bill, Pavel Krasheninnikov, noted that the law does not require changing banknotes, however, a graphic image of the ruble will be used in payment documents…»
In 1999, a competition was already held to create a graphic image of the Russian currency, but then the winner was not named. Currently, the non-graphical symbol RUB is used as the standard international value of the ruble. Before the denomination, the symbol RUR was used, according to Lenta.ru .
P. S. As of April 1, 2011, the official decision of the Bank of Russia has not been announced, there is no information on the website of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. The last official statement on this issue was made in October 2010: «The Bank of Russia may decide on the choice of the ruble sign (a graphic image of the ruble) in 2011, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Georgy Luntovsky said. According to him, all variants of the ruble sign beat the letter R. «There are no other ideas. How it (the letter R) will be stylized is a matter of debate,» explained the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank» (RIA Novosti, October 29, 2010).
This material was prepared by
S. P. Terentyev,
2000-2001
