![for wunderkammer: a 1705 “borodoráia”—a russian beard token
check it players: my halloween costume this year is mostly likely going to be “raynor with a beard” or some variation on this like “raynor with a soul patch” or “raynor with picadilly weepers.” to make my guise complete, i thought i’d mint myself this russian beard token so if anyone dressed in a sexy tsarina costume demands to know if i paid my beard tax i can be like: “da, female comrade.” (or whatever). and then we will toast to mikhail bakunin and i will slurp vodka out of her cupped hands, and she will nurse it from my infused whiskers as if chawing raw sugar cane.
with this image lingering, i will now tell you the provenance of the russian beard coin. or—even better—i will let some smithsonian copywriter do it for me:
[Beard tokens were] issued at the time when Peter [the Great] had ordered the boyars (Russian nobility) and commoners to shave their traditional beards as part of his program to modernize Russia. If they wished to keep their beards, they had to pay a tax. For nobility and merchants, the tax could be as high as 100 rubles annually; for commoners it was much lower — as little as 1 kopek… The tax was strongly opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church and led to several citizen revolts.
the tokens were inscribed with two phrases: the obvious: “the beard tax has been taken” and the propagandic “the beard is a superfluous burden”.
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also related: lettuce not forget the the hair powder tax more about russian coins here](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lajifbtQYF1qzrip0o1_500.jpg)
for wunderkammer: a 1705 “borodoráia”—a russian beard token
check it players: my halloween costume this year is mostly likely going to be “raynor with a beard” or some variation on this like “raynor with a soul patch” or “raynor with picadilly weepers.” to make my guise complete, i thought i’d mint myself this russian beard token so if anyone dressed in a sexy tsarina costume demands to know if i paid my beard tax i can be like: “da, female comrade.” (or whatever). and then we will toast to mikhail bakunin and i will slurp vodka out of her cupped hands, and she will nurse it from my infused whiskers as if chawing raw sugar cane.
with this image lingering, i will now tell you the provenance of the russian beard coin. or—even better—i will let some smithsonian copywriter do it for me:
[Beard tokens were] issued at the time when Peter [the Great] had ordered the boyars (Russian nobility) and commoners to shave their traditional beards as part of his program to modernize Russia. If they wished to keep their beards, they had to pay a tax. For nobility and merchants, the tax could be as high as 100 rubles annually; for commoners it was much lower — as little as 1 kopek… The tax was strongly opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church and led to several citizen revolts.
the tokens were inscribed with two phrases: the obvious: “the beard tax has been taken” and the propagandic “the beard is a superfluous burden”.
__
also related: lettuce not forget the the hair powder tax
more about russian coins here
