On August 4, 1662, an uprising took place in Moscow, known as the Copper Riot.
Residents of the capital of Russia, dissatisfied with the course of the monetary reform carried out by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, rebelled and demanded that the boyars responsible for issuing new money and collecting taxes be handed over to them.
The rebellion was brutally suppressed, but soon after its completion, the monarch canceled the reform.
Monetary reform of Alexei Mikhailovich
According to historians, wars and the annexation of former Polish territories prompted Alexei Mikhailovich to carry out a monetary reform in Russia.
The Russian authorities needed to bring the monetary system of Russia itself and the 5 lands that joined it to uniform standards, and also to replenish the treasury, devastated by military spending.
In the middle of the 17th century, silver coins of three denominations were minted in Russia: a kopeck, a money and a polushka.
Payment means of larger denominations were not minted.
According to experts, this created serious inconvenience in large transactions, because they had to pay with a large amount of small money.
As MPGU professor Vitaly Zakharov noted in a conversation with RT, silver for minting coins came to Russia from abroad, and against the backdrop of the war, its reserves were greatly reduced.
“The tsar, on the recommendation of his entourage, decided to carry out a reform that could be the answer to all the challenges in the field of monetary circulation,” Zakharov emphasized.
According to experts, the beginning of the monetary reform was initiated by the tsar's decision to start minting silver rubles in 1654 from European thalers accumulated in the treasury.
The ruble had been used for several centuries before, but as a conditional unit of account.
A coin of this denomination has never been minted before.
Silver ruble of Alexei Mikhailovich (1654)
© Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
On the obverse of the coin minted from the thaler was placed the image of the king on horseback and his full title, and on the reverse - a double-headed eagle with a crown and the year of minting.
They tried to equate the silver ruble in value with 100 silver kopecks, but by the weight of silver it cost only 64 kopecks.
According to historians, problems arose almost immediately with the reform.
Due to the insufficient amount of silver in the coin, the population did not perceive it as a full-fledged ruble.
And the process of recoining was very time consuming.
Since 1655, the authorities began to simply stamp foreign thalers with a stamp with a rider.
If earlier in Russia thalers were called "yefimki", then coins with a countermark were popularly called "yefimki with a sign".
They had to be equated in value to 64 kopecks.
"Efimok with a sign" (overmarks of 1655 on the Brabant thaler of 1637)
© Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
“In addition to the alteration of thalers, the authorities began to mint coins from copper, equating them administratively in value with silver.
The new copper penny was completely identical in appearance to the old silver one.
The population reacted to the introduction of copper money at first positively and calmly accepted them as a means of payment, ”said Zakharov.
"A huge threat to the state"
Soon after the start of the issue of copper coins, serious problems began.
“Officials from the tsar’s inner circle were allowed to organize the minting of copper money, carrying out unplanned issues of money, some of which were embezzled for personal needs.
A corruption component has arisen in the reform, ”said Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society, in a comment to RT.
According to him, the volume of unsecured money supply began to grow in the country.
The situation was aggravated by the vigorous activity of counterfeiters, who also mastered the production of coins from copper.
In 1661, in Moscow, one silver kopeck could be exchanged for 15 copper kopecks.
“It should be noted that only silver was accepted into the treasury as taxes and fees, but salaries were paid in copper,” said a professor at Moscow State University in an interview with RT.
M.V. Lomonosov Doctor of Historical Sciences Dmitry Volodikhin.
According to Mikhail Myagkov, payments in copper led to a noticeable drop in the real purchasing power of the population.
“It caused people strong irritation at first, and then anger,” Myagkov said.
According to historians, in 1662 the situation in the country deteriorated sharply due to the decision of the authorities to introduce an emergency tax on the income of the townspeople in the amount of 20% - the so-called "fifth of the money".
These funds, like other revenues to the treasury, were to be paid in silver.
Coins from the hoard of the times of the Copper Riot, discovered in Moscow in Kadashevskaya Sloboda in 2015
RIA News
© Evgeniya Novozhenina
On the night of August 4, 1662, leaflets were distributed by unknown persons in which "traitors" from among the representatives of the royal entourage were accused of "ruining the Muscovite state."
Among the “traitors” were the boyar Ilya Miloslavsky, who led several authorities, the butler Fyodor Rtishchev, who was considered the initiator of the issue of copper money, the clerk Bogdan Khitrovo, who was responsible for collecting taxes, the merchant Vasily Shorin and other influential people.
On the morning of August 4, with a large crowd of people, leaflets were publicly read on Red Square and Lubyanka.
A crowd of indignant people, which included soldiers and archers who received salaries from the treasury, moved to the village of Kolomenskoye to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
To meet the crowd, the tsar sent the boyars, ordering them to accept a petition from the people, and he himself ordered the archery regiments loyal to him to be pulled to the village and asked for help from foreigners in the New German settlement.
The participants in the campaign in Kolomenskoye refused the mediation of the boyars, and the tsar went out to them personally.
Aleksey Mikhailovich promised to deal with the accusations against officials and take all necessary measures to solve the problems.
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, painting by an unknown artist of the 17th century
© Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
In Moscow at that time there were pogroms on the estates of the "traitors".
The son of the merchant Shorin, caught by the rebels, allegedly said that his father had gone to Poland.
This was taken as reliable proof of infidelity.
A new crowd moved towards Kolomenskoye, which was then joined by people who had previously spoken with Alexei Mikhailovich.
According to some estimates, the total number of protesters has reached 10 thousand people.
In the crowd there were demands for the king to extradite "traitors", otherwise the monarch was threatened with reprisals.
Alexei Mikhailovich ordered the units loyal to him to use force against the participants in the uprising, which later became known as the Copper Riot.
The protests were crushed.
The exact number of dead and injured is unknown.
About 1.4 thousand people were expelled from Moscow.
“The copper riot is a point in the financial experiment, which was not conceived very well, but carried out even worse,” said Dmitry Volodikhin.
Items from the hoard of the times of the Copper Riot, discovered in Moscow in Kadashevskaya Sloboda in 2015
RIA News
© Evgeniya Novozhenina
According to the expert, Alexei Mikhailovich, despite the successful suppression of Muscovites' protests, drew the necessary conclusions from the current situation.
“After the suppression of the rebellion, which posed a huge threat to the state, since the king himself could be under attack, the authorities did not insist on their own and surrendered.
They showed reasonable flexibility and canceled the reform,” Volodikhin said.
In 1663, the minting of copper coins was stopped, and the copper money remaining from the population was bought at the rate of 100 copper kopecks for one silver one.
“After careful preparation, the idea of minting copper money was successfully implemented by the son of Alexei Mikhailovich Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century,” summed up Dmitry Volodikhin.