Paper money entered the life of human society for a long time. They are very convenient compared to heavy coins. A small sheet of paper with images printed with numbers replaces a huge number of coins. Thick wads of money are one of the fetishes of our time, part of a person's dream of a "normal life."
The history of paper money, like paper in general, begins in China. In the 8th century AD, the Chinese state began to print paper money that could be exchanged for coins. Thanks to the uncontrolled emission of unsecured money, an economic collapse occurred, and the people of China lost interest in paper money for a long time.
Even before the appearance of paper money in China, debt obligations became widespread in the Middle East. In all likelihood, they came there from ancient Egypt. The ancient world possessed a wide and ramified system of debt obligations, bearer receipts often replaced money, although they did not have either protection or uniformity.
After the appearance of a large Jewish population in Europe, the Middle Eastern (aka antique) system of receipts and bills took root there as well. Jewish merchants and usurers used the system familiar to them, and the local population could not help but pay attention to this and borrow such a convenient way of calculating.
The very first paper money on the European continent appeared in the 16th century in Dutch Leiden during the siege of the city and was supposed to replace silver. The very first European paper money in the form familiar to us was issued in 1661 in Sweden. In the same century, the British also issued their banknotes. European paper money essentially combined the merits of Chinese paper money (uniformity) and debt obligations (limited emission, backing with precious metals).
In Russia, paper money first appeared under Peter III, but it was only under Catherine II that they came into circulation. The Empress established two banks in the largest Russian cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg. These were paper sheets of a single sample printed in black ink, little resembling modern money. At the same time, they already had protection in the form of watermarks.
Paper money acquired its familiar form only in the 19th century. It was then that individual numbers and an original drawing appeared on the banknotes.
