Print with the “small eagle.” Red stamp “Lepsinskoye”.
Lepsinsk is a small Cossack town of the Semirechye Oblast, the center of the uyezd of the same name. It grew out of the Lepsinskaya stanitsa, founded by Siberian Cossacks—settlers from the Biysk and Kuznetsk lines—in 1855 in the Chubar-Agach valley, near the Chinese border, in the very heart of Russian Dzungaria.
The Cherkassy defense—military actions by the peasants of twelve Russian villages of the Lepsinsk Uyezd (Semirechye Oblast) in the rear of the White Guard forces.
During the first 3 months of the siege—the defense—the mass of thirty thousand peasants, compressed around the village of Cherkasskoye, used for cash settlements “credit notes of the Semirechye Oblast Council,” secured by a reserve of opium kept in the State Bank and, for greater reliability, signed by the Oblast Military Commissar (numbers 8045–8054 and onward). However, in view of the limited capacity of the Verny printing house, the Lepsinsk uyezd executive committee, being in constant need of monetary signs, began issuing its own money, setting an example for other towns and villages.
Denominations of 1 r., 3 r., 5 r., and 10 r. were issued. The exact total of the emission is unknown, but approximately it equals 25,000 rubles, mainly in 5 r. and 10 r. denominations.
In view of the absence of a printing house in Lepsinsk, the notes were made by “hand” means available on the spot.
The 1 ruble is a 1 kopek postage stamp with serrations, pasted onto a piece of brown wrapping paper, averaging 45 × 60 millimeters in size.
In the lower part of the note there is a rubber stamp (in italics) in violet or red ink—“Lepsinskoye.” Above the stamp and on its sides, perforated with a punch, is: *1*r. On the reverse is a red round stamp of two types:
1. Main Cash Desk of the Lepsinsk Treasury (in the center an eagle of the imperial type).
2. Lepsinsk Uyezd Treasury (an eagle of the imperial type above the text).
At the end of the year the notes were redeemed, and they were canceled by punching three holes through the stamp—one ovoid, one semicircular, and one triangular. The size of each hole is about 5 × 5 millimeters.
This example was followed by the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Cherkassy Front, when the shortage of monetary signs of oblast and uyezd production began to be felt noticeably.
1 ruble with stamp 1 Kopeck 1918.
District Treasury. Lepsinsk.
