I must respond to Robert Krill's letter to the editor in the January issue of World Coin News. He asks, if the symbol on the 10th century Kiev coins is now the Ukrainian national emblem, should they not be considered the first Ukrainian coins? I have no problem with that point of view. He claimed that the contention that they are first "Russian" coins as inaccurate and propagandistic.
Propagandistic is also OK with me. People do like to propagandize. But inaccurate? Kind of fuzzy. Back then, I submit, there were no "Russians" and "Ukrainians." They were all the same people, divided and united by ephemeral and local politics and military necessity, not the mutually disdainful separate ethnic groups of today. Russians consider those coins to be their first and Kievan Rus to be their first political state.
Full Article: Early Russian Wire Money Considered Rare - NumisMaster
