Konyok gorbunok

Obverse

a relief image of the National Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation and a semicircular inscription above it along the rim: ‘РОССИЙСКАЯ ФЕДЕРАЦИЯ’ (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) framed with paired diamonds on both sides, under the coat of arms there are the chemical symbol of the metal and fineness on the left and fine metal content and the mint trade mark on the right, at the bottom in the centre, in three lines, there is an inscription: ‘БАНК РОССИИ’ (BANK OF RUSSIA), the coin denomination: ‘3 РУБЛЯ’ (3 RUBLES), and the year of issue: ‘2022 г.’ (2022).

Reverse

images of Ivan riding Konyok gorbunok with the Firebird in his hand, flying over a fairytale town; there is an inscription: ‘ЛЕГЕНДЫ И СКАЗКИ НАРОДОВ РОССИИ’ (LEGENDS AND FOLKTALES OF RUSSIA) along the bottom circumference. The images of Ivan and Konyok gorbunok as well as the inscription are cast in relief. The iridescent image of the Firebird with special effects of light interference is done using microrelief pattern. The fairytale town, stars and the moon are laser-treated for matte finishing.

Authors

Designers: E.V. Kramskaya (obverse), A.A. Brynza (reverse).
Sculptors: A.A. Dolgopolova (obverse), A.N. Bessonov (reverse).
Mint: Saint Petersburg Mint (СПМД).
Edge: 300 corrugations.

Discover more

The fairytale poem Konyok gorbunok (the Little Humpbacked Horse) is the best-known work by Pyotr Yershov. By the beginning of the 20th century, it had been widely acclaimed as a standard of children’s classical literature. Pyotr Yershov wrote it in 1834, when he was only an 18-year-old student of the faculty of history and philology of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University. Konyok gorbunok is the author’s first and most famous work.

Pyotr Yershov showed the manuscript of the fairytale to three of his acquaintances – Alexander Pushkin, Vasily Zhukovsky, and Professor of the Saint Petersburg University, teacher of Russian literature Pyotr Pletnev. Pushkin liked the fairytale so much that he said: ‘This Yershov masters the Russian verse as if it was his serf.’ Professor Pletnev even read excerpts from the fairytale at his university lectures.

The fairytale poem was not allowed to be published in full: some portions of the text, where the author spoke satirically about the tsar and the church, were removed by the censors. It was only in 1856 that the full version came out.

The fairytale was reprinted three times during Yershov’s life and, overall, 26 times before the revolution. In the Soviet era, the poem was translated into 27 languages and reprinted more than 130 times.

Yershov’s Konyok gorbunok was inspired by several traditional folk stories. The main one was a story about a magical horse helping the protagonist marry a beautiful princess and become a wise and just ruler.

Source: https://www.culture.ru