Medallic Rouble - Dmitri Iwanowitch Fake Dmitri I; Novodel ND

Reverse

Crowned double eagle with St. George's shield on breast.

Script: Cyrillic

Comment

Reichel 570

This medallic rouble was presumably made in Poland. The original dies were later used to strike a few novodels in gold and silver. The reverse die cracked. This specimen is one of the relatively few without the die crack.

Following the death of Ivan the Terrible in 1584, his son Fjodor I came to the throne. Due to mental weakness, the boyar Boris Godunov, his brother-in-law, ruled the country. Dmitri, the last son of Ivan IV and his mother were banished to Uglich where he came to death under unclear circumstances. In the following "Time of Troubles" three impostors came on the scene, claiming to be the escaped Dmitri Ivanovich. The first False Dmitri was he who appears on this „coin". He was supported by several Polish nobles (being possibly the illegitimate son of Stefan Bathori) against Boris Godunov, who had become Czar. Upon his death in 1604, the False Dmitri I was crowned Czar. He was accused of turning Orthodoxy into Polish Catholicism and was killed in a conspiracy shortly after his marriage to a Polish noble woman. His body was supposedly cremated and his ashes were fired from a cannon in the direction of Poland. The real Dmitri's body was brought to Moscow and he was declared a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.