Double rhombuses on the new Russian coins (1, 2, 5 and 10 rubles of 2016+)

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A long shot, but maybe someone here knows something...

There was a lot of fuss about the Russian eagle getting his crown again in 2016 for obvious reasons, but that's easy to interpret. What was significantly more difficult to understand was another weird change: appearance of the "doubled rhombuses" (as the Central Bank of Russia officially describes them), framing the words "Russian Federation" like some sort of mutated quote marks. They look almost like a corporate logo. Despite all my efforts I could not track down the meaning of them or the reason for their addition.

Of course, it could be random and purely whimsical on the part of the engraver, but I am somehow having a difficulty picturing this person musing over a half-finished coin design: "Hmmm, something is missing, the field looks too empty close to the rim... Oh, the heck of it, I'll fill the space with doubled rhombuses!" If it were a dot, or a star, or even a single rhombus -- OK, but double rhombuses?


The new rhombuses remind me of the rhombus decoration on the last pre-revolutionary coppers, roughly on the same position:



If you have time, can you tell us more about the reappearance of the crown on the eagle? Apparently, I missed an intriguing story.
Quote: "ArnoV"

​If you have time, can you tell us more about the reappearance of the crown on the eagle? Apparently, I missed an intriguing story.
​I searched for a while and couldn't find anything pertaining to controversy over the eagle getting the crown back, I'd love to see a clipping or something about that.
Quote: "ArnoV"​The new rhombuses remind me of the rhombus decoration on the last pre-revolutionary coppers, roughly on the same position:

​If you have time, can you tell us more about the reappearance of the crown on the eagle? Apparently, I missed an intriguing story.
Thanks, this is very interesting. Although these rhombuses are much more similar to traditional Slavic (and thus popular stylizations of "Old Rus") ornaments, in embroidery and such. But this may be exactly where the modern designer got his or her idea, just moved it along a bit. Another version I encountered was that these two doubled rhombuses are a cryptic way of representing the traditional Orthodox "eight-ended" cross (because they also have eight "ends"), but that seems a bit far-fetched.

As for the eagle's crowns -- sure. I am happy to oblige. Just do not forget to shut me up later, because it is a topic I can talk a lot about.

First, a very short intro into the history of Russia, its emblems/coats of arms and why they matter.

As you might know, the participation of the Russian Empire in the WWI ended really badly for it: a major political and economical crisis ensued, whole army regiments were deserting, strikes, mutinies, and civil disorders were happening all across the country. The general consensus was that the outdated autocratic system of government and the Tsar Nicolas II personally were largely responsible for the chaos. So the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a temporary Provisional Government took power .

This is known as the February Revolution of 1917. The hopes were that a number of political parties, working together in various democratic settings (first the old imperial parliament, the State Duma, which established the Provisional Government, later various workers and soldier's councils (aka "soviets") and finally the great Russian Constituent Assembly) will figure out a way to transform the country, create its new constitution, reform the government, and overcome the crisis. This, of course, never happened: just half a year later Vladimir Ulyanov (aka "Lenin") and his party of "bolsheviks" organized a clever coup d'état, hijacked the revolution, and opened a new, extremely bloody and tragic chapter in the history of Russia and its surrounding countries.

But in that brief moment between February and October 1917 a glimpse of a different, non-imperial and non-communist, capitalist, bourgeois, liberal, and republican Russia has appeared. It was trying to break with its autocratic past, but not with the general Russian historical tradition, so the usual Russian two-headed eagle was still chosen as its coat of arms. However it was stripped of all imperial regalia: the crowns, the orb, the scepter and the shields with coats of arms of various imperial domains. Also a less war-like stance was chosen, with wings lowered down, going back to the eagle of Ivan III (1440-1505, a grand prince of Moscow, famous as "the gatherer of lands" and basically the father of the later Moscow state, although nominally not the first tsar). Here is an example of the Provisional Government's eagle, you can judge for yourself how close it is to the eagle minted on the Russian rubles of 1992-2015.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Russian_coa_1917_vrem.png

Fast forward to 1991. The Soviet Union collapses due to the Russian Federation led by Yeltsin seceding from it, which starts "a parade of independencies" of all the other former republics. A ridiculous attempt of a restoration coup in August 1991 fails in just 3 days and only consolidates the power under Yeltsin. A new country is born with ideals very different from the former communist ones, and again it needs new symbols. A lot of people would like to forget the communist nightmare, they dream of pro-Western democracy and liberalism, so the natural reset point is that little period of mid-1917, when a new and free Russia could have happened (spoiler: sadly, this reset was unsuccessful yet again). At that point there was no time to deliberate long about new symbols, in particular due to an urgent need to print and mint new money, so only a slightly modified eagle of the Provisional Government of 1917 was chosen as the emblem of the newly formed Central Bank of Russia. And it appears on the coins starting from 1992 and on the bills starting from 1995.

Well, again, as you might remember, the moods shifted very quickly. Already in March 1992, when the work on legitimizing the new coat of arms started, the new eagle was criticized for its "naked" and "insufficiently state-like" appearance. This reflected a general disappointment among the general public with the new regime: the first wave of financial and economic crisis hit, but even worse -- many started to realize that they lacked a powerful national idea. So a lot of people insisted that, perhaps, the Russian Empire of 18-19th centuries is a much better reference for the new Russia than some vague democratic dream, that never happened in the first place. And by 1993, when the details of the new coat of arms were worked out, the imperial autocratic eagle was pretty much resurrected: with the 3 crowns, the scepter, the orb, and even one "domain" shield (with the coat of arms of Moscow). By the end of the same year Yeltsin "resolved" a constitutional crisis by ordering tanks to shoot at the building of insolent parliament. The new liberal Russia was stillborn for the second time in the same century.

But the eagle of the Central Bank was already there, legitimized, approved, and minted on the new shiny coinage of the new country. And, apparently, it is frowned upon to change such things very frequently, it sends wrong message about the bank, so it was left as is. Leading to a number of embarrassing and funny situations, because the further down the "strong Russia" road, the more reluctant the Russian bank authorities were to acknowledge any connection with the Provisional Government of 1917, culminating at some point (in May 2014, just as the war with Ukraine was getting started) to an absolutely ridiculous statement by the bank's spokesperson, that their eagle was in fact borrowed from "Russian fairy tales".

So in 2016 somebody came up with a great idea: without really changing the emblem of the Bank of Russia or the legislation about the Bank of Russia being the issuer of the currency, just add the words "Russian Federation" to the coins and bills, and accompany them with ITS coat of arms (which was the "proper" imperial eagle for a very long time already) rather than with the Bank's emblem. So no changes and yet a drastic change! Very much in line with the current "hybrid" policies of Russia. It was totally out of the blue: no press-releases, no official explanations. Just the usual regular announcement of issuing new coins and bills for the upcoming year 2016 -- and suddenly those who pay attention to such things discovered the new eagle! I do not think it was even mentioned in the news (although I am not following the Russian news that well to be really sure), I've seen only discussions in the social networks.

And the meaning of this change... I guess in the light of Putin showing cartoons of Russian nuclear warheads hitting Florida it is pretty obvious.
That's a very interesting story; I've seen the symbols of liberal, democratic, republican Russia on banknotes of the Provisional Government [of the Russian Republic] issued during those eight months in 1917, and on the banknotes issued by the White Armies and their co-belligerents in the Russian Civil War until the early 1920s:


I agree it looks less majestic than the crowned eagle, but a non-monarchy with a crown seems kind of oxymoronic.
Cool! It is interesting that this type of bills with the Provisional Government's eagle was not only in circulation, but even PRINTED by the bolshevik government till 1922 (when the inflation reached an enormous scale and an overdue money reform was finally conducted). Apparently they captured all the typographical equipment and special watermarked paper, including the plates for making bills of both 1917 and 1918 types (the Provisional Government was preparing a new issue). But for years they could not find anybody with enough expertise to help them with making the new plates or even adjusting the old ones! I think this is a very telling example of what the people who came to power then were like.

When looking into these bills, I noticed, that a rhomboid ornament is also present in some of them (in particular, 5000 and 10000 rubles of 1918 type). And immediately caught a new rhombus-related interpretation. They say that it was... a swastika motif!
Interesting what you said about the Soviets continuing to use the Provisional Govt. issues until 1922, I have several R.S.F.S.R banknote issues in my collection dated 1921 and 1922. The whole era was kind of a mess in Russia anyway, so I assume different areas saw different circulations.

As for swastikas, they can be seen under the crown-less eagle on Provisional Govt. issues of 1917, namely the 250 and 1000 roubles; but at this point in time the swastika was a commonly used symbol of good fortune in the Western world still.
yuretzius, I guess you created this topic only to provoke a questions about the eagles and post your long acrimonious speech (especially I beleve in it reading the other your post). It was interesting but quite biassed and trolling. please, don't provoke political discussions on this site, choose the other place to express your old resentments.

The Russian eagle was introduced in commerovatives coins in 2011. It was a decision to change the Central Bank emblem to the official coat of arms of Russia, tested on commerovatives first and then introduced on common coins. There were not officially published idea behind this decision and all the thoughts above are quite subjective and biassed.

Take care.
Medieval sets for swap:https://en.numista.com/forum/topic140941.html

My personal list of scammers from Numista: erniemix, yvain, CassTaylor
I am sorry, I was not planning to provoke any political discussions (and, actually, I do not think there is anything to provoke here and anything to discuss, everything is pretty straightforward and was discussed to the death elsewhere, if you are really into these kinds of topics). My question was very specific and was not about the eagles at all. It was about the doubled rhombuses and their meaning, possible symbolic connections etc. I have already been asking it in other places. Nobody seems to know.
Thanks, yuretzius, for your bright report on the whether-or-not imperial eagle on Russian coinage. I learned some interesting new insights, even though I am not completely blanc on the topic.

The swastika interpretation is far-fetched - and in any case should not be interpreted in a wrong manner. Up to the 1920-ies the swastika was just an ancient and respected symbol for 'prosperity'. It had yet to acquire its association with an abject philosophy.
Hello.
This pattern met before, there is no need to think up something.




https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces4658.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces6693.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces2359.html

And yes, Grinya said it right.​
Again, I must apologize. It was not my intention to offend anybody. I am not a troll and I did not come to this place to start any political discussions.

Nevertheless, I am very grateful for all the replies. I did not realize that there was a clear genetic line of rhomboid ornaments from the Imperial and Provisional Government's coins and bills through the new Russian coins of the 1990s. So the separators on the new coins do not really appear out of the blue, they follow a well established tradition.

Thank you, and sorry for disturbing anybody with my long and a bit too passionate posts.

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