Ruble For The Czar Who Wasn't Czar

Numismatic News - The death of Russian Czar Alexander I in late 1825 set off a chain of events in which two brothers swore allegiance to the other as the new ruler of Imperial Russia. The St. Petersburg Mint quickly prepared a portrait ruble for one of the brothers but picked the wrong one and had to hide their involvement in the affair. It all began in 1796 when Paul I became Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.

Paul, the son of Peter III (1761-1762) and Catherine II (1762-1796), grew up hating his mother. His first act as czar was to stage a joint funeral for his parents. The body of Peter III was exhumed and carried in state alongside that of his mother (Catherine II, who had just died) to their final resting places a few hundred feet from the imperial mint. In 1762 Paul's mother had ordered her recently deposed husband (Peter III) strangled; Paul never forgot how his father had died.

Czar Paul's hatred of French nobility and his admiration of Prussia horrified Russian society and led to several plots against him. His moods went from one extreme to another and real (or imagined) enemies were exiled to Siberia on the slightest whim.

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