FACTS ABOUT ESTONIA

ESTONIANMONEY14Impressive silver necklaces worn by theorthodox Setu women commonly consistof coins minted over several centuries andweigh over two kilograms.It has been suggested that the wordraha (‘money’) in Estonian originatesfrom an ancient Gothic loan denotingfur. Another presumptive explanationconnects the original stem of rahawith the spoils of war.The oldest coin hoard found in Estoniaconsists of Late Roman sestertii andsolidi. The Viking Age introduced theArabian dirhams, Russian nogatas andWestern European denars and pence.The first local mints were probably setup in the 1220s.Early modern farthings from 16th centuryDorpat (Tartu) and Reval (Tallinn).The diversity of currencies has madeEstonian numismatics rather varied –marks, shillings, pence, öre, groschen,ducats, crowns, grivnas, kopecks andso on, have all been used on Estonianterritory.Likewise many a nascent country, thecurrency of the Republic of Estonia hasbeen used to signal the foreign policypreferences of the nation. From 1919to 1928, the name mark was used asin Germany and Finland; in the courseof the monetary reform of 1928, itwas replaced by kroon (‘crown’), thelegal tender of Sweden, Denmark andNorway.A hybrid of the Viking longship and theHanseatic cog on a one-kroon coin refersto the Estonian claim for a place amongthe ancient seafarers of the North.The newly restored Estonian statereintroduced the Estonian kroon andsent in 1992. Adopting the nationalcurrency to supersede the despisedSoviet rouble raised Estonian moraleno end. Consequently, giving up theirown money in favour of the Europeancommon currency 19 years later, in2011, was a tough sacrifice for manyEstonians.The design of pre-war Estonian banknotesrelied excessively on national imagery –hardworking country men and women andnatural landmarks.Several Estonian banknotes of the 1990sportrayed people of cultural merit, suchas author A. H. Tammsaare and romanticpoet Lydia Koidula.The Estonian outline on the national sideof Estonian Euro coins.