| February 27, 1918. The St. Petersburg Mint Actually Closed Its Business. Prior to This It Was Continuously Manufacturing Coins for Persia (under the Contract Concluded in 1915) |
With the beginning of the World War I the Russian Government tried to accumulate as much gold as it could and free exchange of paper money into gold was stopped. The restrictions covered also small change. In view of high inflation the Forwarding Agency could not mint small change enough and therefore small coins in circulation were replaced by paper stamps printed by the Forwarding Agency. Nevertheless, the Petrograd Mint continued to mint coins. The February Revolution could not significantly affectthe state of affairs. Such backbone elements of the governmental system as mints, as a rule, are characterized by a high level of stability to political changes and only truly devastating events can radically affect their operation . According to some sources, even the rise of the Bolsheviks to power in Petrograd could not stop the Mint from minting old coins – “tsarist” metallic coins were used to pay the troops at the front and the Soviet of People’s Comissars had to take this into account until the Brest Peace Treaty was concluded.
Moreover, beginning from 1915 the Petrograd Mint manufactured coins for Persia under its international contractual obligations to mint. Initially coins were minted for the Russian task force in Iran, the northern part of which was actually occupied by Russia since 1915. By the end of 1917 Russia had no control whatsoever over Iran, but the contract was concluded and the obligations under this contract had to be executed. On February 27, 1918, when all coins for Persia had been minted, the Petrograd Mint actually stopped its operation. By that time high inflation made minting Russian metallic coins unprofitable because there was a severe shortage of metal and the state and economic crisis was of such devastating nature that many elements of the governmental structure including the Mint could not bear it.
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