Coins of the second zemstvo people's militia 1612-1613

The second people's militia of Minin and Pozharsky is a group of like-minded people whose goal was to overthrow the Poles, who then ruled in Moscow. The second militia began to gather in the winter of 1611; it was based in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1612, having gained strength, the militia moved to Yaroslavl (closer to Moscow). In order to provide himself and the army with money, Kuzma Minin organized the minting of his own coin, in the image of the state one, I must say, it turned out well, the militia coins won the trust of the population, which is proven by the massive scale of their minting. The most understandable version, minted in Yaroslavl - with the letters "С/ѦР" under the horse, this is definitely Yaroslavl. But it was necessary to decide on the name of the Tsar; they decided mainly to use the name of Fyodor Ivanovich 1584-1598, the last legitimate ruler of the Rurik family. The Yaroslavl monetary yard also issued coins that can confuse numismatists, with the letter “M” under the horse, “Moscow” under the horse, without letters under the horse, and also with the names of Boris Fedorovich Godunov (1598-1605) - extremely rare, Vladislav Zhigimontovich (1610-1612) is extremely rare, and after the new Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich was elected, the name appeared on the coin - Mikhail Fedorovich. That is, it turns out that there are coins of Fyodor Ivanovich as a tsar, issued during his reign, and there are coins of Fyodor Ivanovich, but by the people’s militia. And they must be distinguished by their stamp, because the people’s militia did not write their “name”.

On November 4, 1612, the militia captured Moscow and drove out the Poles. And the new tsar was appointed only on March 27, 1613. During this period, while the tsar was not appointed, the minting of coins also began in Moscow at a temporary mint - coins were minted with the name of Fyodor Ivanovich and later with the name of Mikhail Fedorovich. And minting began in parallel at the Pskov Mint - it issued coins with the name of Fedor. In total, 3 mints worked in parallel. According to the book by Serey Garosta, 2012, p. 228, the minting of militia coins at the Yaroslavl Mint ceased on 05.1613, and at the Moscow Mint on 11.1613, at the Pskov Mint on 02.1613. Thus, we received a variety of militia coins, most of which we can recognize only by the type of letters on the coin and the nature of the image.