500 rubles — RSFSR (1919) — “Babylonian note”

The five-hundred-rouble settlement note of the second 1919 series is also a «Babylonian note»: it has an ornate border and is dated 1919, but was released in March 1920. On the reverse the slogan «Workers of the world, unite» is printed in several languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Four series were issued at three factories — 432 million notes. Issuing was stopped by a decree of 28 June 1922, and the notes could be exchanged for 1922-series roubles at 10,000 to 1 until 1 November 1922.

The note carries two signatures: that of the People's Commissar of Finance N. Krestinsky (the same on all) and one of ten cashiers, set by the last digit of the block number (0 — Titov, 9 — Osipov). The series were printed by three Goznak factories: the First Moscow factory printed АА (blocks 001–200) and АГ (001–066), Penza АБ (001–087) and Perm (the Urals) АВ (001–079). Each block is 1,000,000 notes; the table has a separate row for each series and last block digit, with the Moscow series АА and АГ combined.

The notes were printed in sheets of 10 (2 × 5). All series occur with a watermark of the numeral 500 laid horizontally, while series АБ and АВ also occur with a different one — six-pointed stars; in series АБ the stars are missing only with the cashier whose block ends in 6. A printing error is known: the reverse printed upside down. Specimens are perforated «ОБРАЗЕЦЪ».

The dominant colour of the note is green. The slogan on the reverse is printed in four scripts: Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic and Chinese characters. The note measures 110 × 75 mm.