The Copper Riot was an uprising of the poor in Moscow that resulted from the monetary reform under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
The need to change the monetary system of the Muscovite state in the 17th century was obvious. At that time, the main coins used in circulation were silver kopecks. For example, to pay the salary of the Russian army, half a million such kopecks were needed. In addition, these kopecks were inconvenient because of their small size. The idea arose to introduce a larger coin or denomination that could be correlated with the main monetary unit of contemporary Europe—the thaler. In Russia, such money was not used in circulation. It was melted down and turned into silver kopecks.
In 1654, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and his government began carrying out a monetary reform in Russia. It started with the introduction of the silver ruble. By weight it equaled the thaler. The country’s population accepted these coins very willingly. The difficulty of the reform at this stage was that the thaler in fact corresponded by weight to 64 Moscow kopecks, while the ruble was issued at a forced rate of 100 kopecks. At first, this drawback did not affect the inhabitants of the Russian state too strongly—the need for large coins was very great.
The next stage of the reform was connected with the fact that it proved impossible to mint a large number of rubles because the minting equipment broke down quickly. Then the Russian government took another route: they took ordinary efimki (as thalers were called in Russia) and struck them in a special way. They became known as “efimki with countermarks.” They were put into circulation at a more reasonable rate—64 kopecks for one such monetary unit.
Then Alexei Mikhailovich decided that the time had come to mint copper money. This need was due to the fact that until the end of the 17th century Russia had no domestic silver. All of this metal was imported, and it was clearly in short supply. The Moscow Mint began striking copper coinage. A pretext for minting copper money was the discovery of copper ore not far from Kazan, which they decided to put to use. They minted altyns, poltinas, and kopecks. All these coins were issued at the value of the silver currency in circulation. It proved impossible to establish mass minting of large copper denominations because of the weak technical base of the hastily opened new mints. A small number of issued poltinas has survived, while other denominations have not come down to our time. Soon after the start of the reform, they decided to switch mainly to minting kopecks, which were made in the same way as the old “scale” coins—from pieces of wire. This was a time bomb for the entire monetary reform, since the price of copper was 50 times lower than that of silver.
The reform began in 1654—at the time when the Russo-Polish war started. Therefore, more and more money was required to conduct it. Increasing amounts of copper money were issued. This money was sent to the active army, and the war was fought on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, whose population treated the new money with distrust. As a result, a difference in exchange rates arose. This was called a discount—a surcharge when accepting a low-value currency. This difference grew more and more over time.
At this time, Alexei Mikhailovich made the following mistake. He issued a decree according to which taxes were to be collected only in silver, while wages were to be paid only in copper. After this decree, a financial crisis began in Russia. The entire monetary system became disorganized. It would seem that peasants should have benefited from this, since food prices rose. However, it was unprofitable for them to sell their goods for copper money. Service people were also paid wages in copper. This greatly displeased both peasants and other groups of the population.
From 1661, Russian-minted copper stopped being accepted in Ukraine, and throughout Rus' people refused to sell bread for it. The troops did not want to receive further pay in “red” money. Unrest began in the army, soon intensified after a series of military defeats. By 1662, counterfeit copper money also became widespread, which was not particularly difficult to mint from cheap metal. Even the tsar’s close associates produced forgeries. Driven to despair, the Moscow population rose in July 1662 in an uprising that went down in history as the “Copper Riot.” The people demanded the abolition of the “red” money.