Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The Siberian numismatics as a scholar discipline is in its developmental phase. Its late start as compared with the numismatic studies in Russia was caused by the specific features of Siberian coin material, specifically its small quantity. That new discipline still doesn’t have its own special scientific instruments, namely the certain research aims, correct concepts and adequate methods. For example, there is no correct definition of Siberian mint in the special literary. The purpose of this publication is to analyze historical sources of the XVIII-XIX centuries in order to reveal the most historically correct localization of the Siberian mint. The study led to some interesting findings. Firstly, in the historiography of the Siberian economy there is no generally acknowledged localization of minting in Siberia although this place is well known from the sources; scholars and other authors use three different definitions, quite often simultaneously: Kolyvan’ mint, Suzun (or Nizhne-Suzun) mint, and Barnaul one. Secondly, in the bureaucratic office records there was no brief and accurate definition of the site of Siberian mintage up to 1828, when the definition “Suzun mint” appeared in an Emperor’s decree, the term “mint” was not officially used with reference to the Siberian mintage during the reign of Catherine the Second. Thus, it’s evident that the supreme authority in Russia and all imperial administration avoided any definiteness in this problem. Therefore, modern researchers found themselves out of the clarity as well. From the historical sources we know that the most precise and complete definition for the site of the Siberian minting in 1763-1828 was the following: “manufacture of the copper Siberian coin at the Nizhne-Suzunsk factory (of Our Kolyvano-Voskresensk factories)”. It seems to be the most correct in the scholar use too.