Alexander Igorevich

Reading time: ~5 minutes

Many reputable world currencies quoted on the foreign exchange market have their own symbol (ligature) used for abbreviated designation. The US dollar has it - this is the well-known “$”, the Japanese yen - “¥”, the oldest pound sterling - “£” and even the youngest currency - the euro, also has its own short symbol - “€”, which it acquired in as a result of painful elections and torment that ended in December 1996.

But one of the most stable currencies in the world - the Swiss franc still does not have its own ligature, and the Chinese yuan did not act entirely correctly, appropriating the designation of the Japanese yen - it turns out that this happens.

In Russia, the idea of ​​​​creating its own currency designation has been in the air for a long time, but only at the beginning of December 2013 was a new ruble sign finally chosen.

Attempts to begin developing a short designation for the Russian currency were made back in 1997, after the redenomination. Several variants related to the Latin letter “R” were developed, but a default occurred and the matter stopped. In 1997, the competition was held by the magazine “Financier”, the result was 300 writing options, but none of them were approved.

The second similar competition was held in 1999 by the Dengi magazine, followed by 2 more competitions - from the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, held in 2005-2006, and from RIA Novosti.

The now winning symbol was developed in 2007 by an initiative group created by the famous designer Erken Kagarov, which included Designet, DesignDepot, Imadesign and other companies.

Criteria that the ruble symbol must meet

When choosing the most interesting and suitable options, the ligature’s compliance with the following requirements was taken into account:

• Graphic uniqueness and originality of the sign,
• Ease of writing, memorization, perception and reproduction of the symbol,
• Convenient handwriting
• A solid, persistent and unambiguous association with the Russian currency,
• Absence of clear associations with any religion,
• Preservation of graphic standards and style of writing signs of other world currencies,
• Single-part designation is important for simplicity and ease of use (for example, the letters “yu” or “s” are two-part),
• The character width must be standard - this is an important parameter for typesetting fonts,
• Font independence - the ligature should easily fit into both Cyrillic and Latin fonts, and into any
• Uniform density - means the absence of graphic overloads and too small details in one of the parts of the symbol,
• The Russian currency designation has historical and cultural roots.

This is only part of the objective requirements - there are also subjective ones, such as speed and ease of identification, harmonious perception of the logo among the designations of other currencies, the absence of negative, ambiguous or dubious associations, and others.

Why do we need a Russian currency symbol?

Many people wonder: “ Why do we even need this logo for our currency?" After all, we lived without it for almost five centuries - since the time of the ruble reform of Elena Glinskaya, the famous mother of Ivan the Terrible.

According to the Central Bank, in other leading countries of the world, currency designations began to appear with the involvement of national currencies in international circulation. Thus, the symbols that appeared received recognition on the world stage. So having your own sign will contribute to the recognition of the Russian currency throughout the world and its recognition.

E. Nabiullina believes that the graphic image emphasizes the stability of the ruble.

As Nikolai Zhuravlev said, “the national currency sign, its presence is an international practice, and now the Russian ruble has ceased to be an exception to the rule in this sense.” He also answered the question of what the presence of a currency logo gives the country: “the official approval of the symbol of the Russian currency will increase its authority in the world market and will become the basis for the unification of the graphic designation.”

According to Alexander Troshin, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, the appearance of currency symbols on keyboard layouts will help promote the logo throughout the world.

Other interesting facts about the new ruble sign

• In 2014, the issue of coins in the denomination of “1 ruble” with the image of the approved designation will be organized. The circulation will be 100 million copies. The coins will be minted throughout 2014 from steel with a nickel plated plating.
• In addition, the approved ligature will be used in the packaging of banknotes and in their security symbols.

Ruble symbol. History of symbol approval.

The symbol (sign) of the ruble is an abbreviated graphic designation of the word “ruble”, i.e. symbol designation of the ruble.
If the first mentions of the ruble appeared in the 13th century, then the first mentions of the abbreviated sign for the word “ruble” appeared only in the 17th century. The very name of the monetary unit has remained unchanged for 800 years and has reached our time, but the graphic symbol (sign) of the ruble had already lost its main purpose by the end of the 18th century and was not officially mentioned further.

In Russia, symbols of power periodically changed (coat of arms, flag, anthem, socio-political structure of the country and even its borders), but the ruble invariably remained the country's monetary unit. But numerous attempts to develop and re-approve a graphic image of the symbol (sign) of the ruble did not produce results until 2006.

This year, the problem of introducing the sign (symbol) of the ruble reached the state level, and on June 12, 2006, an addition was made to Article 4 of the Federal Law of July 10, 2002 N 86-FZ “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” in the form of paragraph 2.1 of the following contents:

Article 4. The Bank of Russia performs the following functions:
2.1) approves the graphic designation of the ruble in the form of a sign;
(clause 2.1 introduced by Federal Law dated June 12, 2006 No. 85-FZ)

So, in accordance with this amendment to the law, all organizational work on the selection and approval of the ruble symbol was officially delegated to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Work on this issue did not begin immediately; it was carried out quite slowly and with long attenuations of activity. In 2007, a working group of the Bank of Russia was created, which considered more than a thousand requests from citizens and organizations with proposals for writing a graphic symbol for the ruble and studied all the ideas of the Internet community.

All over the world, the word “ruble” is associated precisely with the words Russia, and the Russian ruble in the eyes of people symbolizes our country, so it is impossible to make a mistake in choosing a sign. In the meantime, the issue with the sign was not resolved, in the banking environment (in Russia and abroad), unofficially unapproved images of the ruble in the form of “RU”, “RUR”, “RUB”, etc. existed and symbolized Russia. And this is not correct - the sign of the Russian ruble should under no circumstances be written in English or other foreign letters.

It is interesting that since 1991, on all banknotes of the Bank of Russia, a hidden image of the letters “PP” (Kipp effect) has been used as one of the signs of the authenticity of the banknotes. Maybe this image should become a symbol of our ruble, if it has already been present on banknotes since the release of the first banknotes of the Russian Federation. This would be logical for the Russian ruble - "RR".

The responsibility of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for making a decision on the graphical representation of the ruble is very great, because this decision is for centuries. The information portal Izvestia.Ru reported that work in this direction continues and the Central Bank received more than 100 options for the image of the ruble, and after a careful selection of the commission, only three remained. Perhaps the Bank of Russia is not entirely satisfied with these options, and it is hesitant to make a final choice. This is confirmed by the fact that the Central Bank decided to find out the opinion of the members of the National Banking Council by showing them sketches of a graphic image of the ruble.

In the meantime, the bottom line is that there is inconsistency in the business practices of banks and enterprises. So, for example, in all the information provided on the website of Sberbank of Russia, the sign “rubles” or “rubles of the Russian Federation” has recently been added.

2013 - work on the ruble sign intensified

7 years have passed since amendments were made to the fourth article of the Federal Law of July 10, 2002 N 86-FZ on the approval of the graphic designation of the ruble. It was November 2013, and at the Bank of Russia there was a change in the Chairman of the Board, and the issue of approving the symbol of the Russian ruble intensified again. No, no, the ruble symbol had not yet been chosen at this point, and accordingly was not approved. The following information simply appeared on the Bank of Russia website:

The working group of the Bank of Russia considered more than a thousand requests from citizens and organizations with proposals for various spellings of the graphic designation of the ruble, and studied the ideas of the Internet community. Among them, the five most frequently proposed options were selected. To make the final decision on the choice of the ruble symbol, the Bank of Russia submits five finalist symbols for public discussion...

That is, the Bank of Russia proposed a second public discussion, which lasted from November 5 to December 5, 2013. The discussion was conducted in the form of a vote on the Central Bank website, where everyone could make their choice of the best, in their opinion, ruble symbol and comment on this choice.

The symbol (sign) of the ruble has been approved

At the end of 2013 (December 11, 2013), that is, literally 6 days after the end of voting, the Bank of Russia approved the graphic designation of the ruble (ruble symbol). The second option has been approved - in the form of the capital letter "P" of the Cyrillic alphabet, supplemented at the bottom with a horizontal line - ₽ . During the last public discussion, more than 61% of voting participants supported the ruble symbol approved by the Bank of Russia. The remaining options had a significant lag, and their results ranged from 19.2% to 1.9%. The winning sign does not have a specific author, as stated by First Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Georgy Luntovsky.

Symbol (sign) of the ruble

In addition, you can copy or download the ruble symbol on the website

Official description of the ruble symbol, given by the Bank of Russia as follows:

The graphic designation of the ruble in the form of a sign represents the capital letter “P” of the Cyrillic alphabet, supplemented at the bottom with a horizontal line, creating the impression of the presence of two parallel lines, which symbolizes the stable position of the Russian ruble.
The symbol can be executed in straight and italic style.

Now the task of the Bank of Russia should include promoting the ruble sign both abroad (for the recognition of our currency) and in Russia, although the Chairman of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, said that:

... the ruble sign is quite convenient to write and use, and participants in business transactions will use it on an absolutely voluntary basis"

Painstaking work remains to implement the ruble sign - when reflecting it in official documents and the banking sector. Changes to computer keyboards will also be required. And the Bank of Russia will use the ruble sign when indicating currency quotes on its website and in the design of banknotes

Graphic designation of the ruble in the form of a sign on coins

And on June 17, 2014, the Bank of Russia for the first time issued two coins with the graphic sign of the ruble of the Russian Federation on the reverse. The practical introduction of the ruble sign into everyday use began. The following coins were issued:

1. Type of coin reverse - “Three rubles” (silver)

If you at least sometimes use MS Word for work or study, you probably know that this program has many symbols and special characters in its arsenal that can also be added to documents.

This set contains a lot of signs and symbols that may be needed in many cases, and you can read more about the capabilities of this function in our article.

In this article we will talk about all the possible ways to add the Russian ruble symbol to a Microsoft Word text document, but first we need to note one important nuance:

Note: To add a new (changed several years ago) ruble sign, your computer must have Windows 8 or higher operating system installed, as well as Microsoft Office 2007 or a newer version.

Method 1: Symbol Menu

1. Click in the place in the document where you want to insert the Russian ruble symbol, and go to the tab "Insert".

2. In a group “Symbols” click the button "Symbol", and then select “Other symbols”.

3. Find the ruble sign in the window that opens.

Advice: In order not to search for a much-needed symbol for a long time, in the drop-down list "Kit" select item “Currency units”. The changed list of symbols will also include the Russian ruble.

4. Click on the symbol and press the button "Insert". Close the dialog box.

5. The Russian ruble sign will be added to the document.

Method 2: Code and Key Combination

Each symbol and special sign presented in the section “Symbols”Word programs have their own code. Knowing it, you can add the necessary symbols to the document much faster. In addition to the code, you also need to press special keys, and you can see the code itself in the “Symbol” window directly after clicking on the element you need.

1. Place the cursor at the place in the document where you want to add the Russian ruble sign.

2. Enter the code “ 20BD” without quotes.

Note: The code must be entered in the English language layout.

3. After entering the code, click “ ALT+X”.

4. The Russian ruble sign will be added at the specified location.

Method 3: Hotkeys

Lastly, we will look at the simplest option for inserting the ruble symbol into Microsoft Word, which involves using only hotkeys. Place the cursor at the place in the document where you want to add the character, and press the following combination on the keyboard:

CTRL+ALT+8

Important: In this case, you need to use only the number 8, which is located in the top row of keys, and not on the side NumPad keyboard.

Conclusion

This is how easy it is to insert a ruble symbol in Word. We recommend that you familiarize yourself with other symbols and signs available in this program - it is quite possible that you will find there what you have been looking for for a long time.

The sign or symbol of the ruble arose as a result of the evolution of writing in Rus'. The abbreviation of the word “ruble” was used in writing for a century, from the second half of the 17th to the second half of the 19th century, representing a ligature used for speed of writing - the combination and interaction of the superscript letters “r” and “u”. Over time, the ligature lost its original meaning, turning by the end of the 18th century into a completely independent symbol, along with modern letters.

Currently, unofficial symbols of the ruble are available in two spellings: a lowercase “p” with a dot and, as an option, the “Lebedev-Tarbeev sign” (the “P” sign with a crossed out leg).

The Law “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” (86-FZ dated July 10, 2002) establishes that the decision to approve the graphic designation of the ruble in the form of a symbol is made by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. As of August 1, 2011, the state symbol of the ruble was not approved by the bank.

Timeline and examples of use

1. The first recorded example of the use of the sign

One of the first dated examples when the ruble sign began to be used is in the Collection of translations from Epiphanius Slavinetsky, where it appears in the inscription in the margins of the book. Such a record testified to the ownership, purchase or sale of the book and stated that on December 5, 1681, Belakhon resident Vasily Tveritinov sold this book to townsman Mikhail Terentyev for 12 rubles 100 altyn 2 money.

2. The latest example of writing a sign

The latest of all known examples of writing the ruble sign was in the first half of the 19th century in the entry of the Code of Laws of the Sovereign and Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich. The entry made by academician Pavel Stroev reads: “4 rubles, December 18, 1830.” One of the first collectors of monuments of ancient Russian writing made an inscription on a book from his personal library.

3. Inventory of money seized from the Decembrist Raevsky

There are examples of using the ruble symbol not only in business and personal correspondence, but also in official documents. One such example is the inventory of things and money that were seized from the Decembrist Raevsky during his arrest.

4. Active use of the ruble sign

Thanks to scientific and historical documents, we can conclude that by the beginning of the 19th century, the ruble sign was actively used by representatives of different classes of the Russian Empire: court and army scribes (philistines), university professors (commoners), booksellers (merchants), and nobles.

Considering that cursive writing originates already in the 14th century, and the writing of the 16th century already widely uses the horizontal superscript “r” (both independently and in combination with the letter “u”), further study of the primary sources of Slavic writing significantly expands the time boundaries of the use of the sign.

There was experience of using the ruble symbol in print - in particular, Magnitsky’s “Arithmetic” (1703) contained such a sign. But this was not widely adopted.

Historical spelling of the ruble sign

The classic version, which Ekaterina Vorobyova adheres to in her works, says that in the letter combination “ru” - the basis of the independent symbol of the ruble, the letter “r” (“rtsy”) is rotated counterclockwise by 90 degrees, and the letter “u” (“uk ") is written over it. Ivan Sinchuk has a different point of view. He believes that the letter "r" is rotated counterclockwise by 90 degrees, and the letter "u" written on top of it is rotated clockwise by 90 degrees.

Primary sources confirm both versions: the outline of the sign very much depends on the characteristics of the handwriting and writing options range from a regular cross to a reproduction of one of the described options.

In the 17th century, the ligature “ru” was written above the numbers. At the same time, numbers were then written using Cyrillic letters; the title was simply written above them. When denoting monetary amounts, the title was replaced with the cursive ligature “ru”.

Already at the beginning of the 18th century, Cyrillic letters and numbers were replaced with Arabic numbers, and the title was no longer used. In this case, the ligature “ru” gradually shifts to the right and down in relation to the numbers, while losing its original meaning as a letter combination and turning into a full-fledged symbol.

In the 19th century, the ligature “ru”, which became a sign, was reduced in size and written to the right of the numbers slightly above the main line, using a superscript relative to the line. In Russian, when written by hand, such an index of numbers is often underlined by dashes (1st, 2nd). But when writing monetary amounts, the horizontal letter “p” replaces these lines.

Attempts to systematize variants of writing ruble signs

The only attempt to scientifically systematize and streamline the writing options for the ruble sign was made by Ivan Sinchuk in his work “The Many Faces of the Ruble Sign.”

Only once did Vladimir Efimov try to link the historical symbol of the ruble to the main modern fonts from a professional point of view in 1998.

And only twice did journalists and artists try to create a modern logo based on the ruble sign of the 17th-19th centuries. First in the magazine “Everything is clear” in 2005, then in the magazine “Idea X” in 2009.

A variant of writing the ruble symbol in one stroke was proposed by Yuri Kalashnov in 1999.

Reasons for introducing the official ruble sign

The gradual integration of the Russian economy into the world economy and the widespread use of foreign currencies in the country’s internal circulation (of course, first of all, the dollar, which has its own sign, recognizable by everyone), proposals to introduce a sign denoting the Russian currency have been repeatedly expressed. The emergence of the euro and the approval of its sign increased such proposals, which led to the holding of several competitions at the unofficial level, initiatives and actions to introduce the ruble symbol.

Initiatives, promotions and competitions undertaken

The first known competition, held by the Financier magazine in 1997, attracted about 300 works. The author of the idea was Andrey Eremenko.

The second was in 1999–2000 the “Sign of the Ruble” event, which was carried out jointly by the Club of Graphic Designers “Portfolio” (ideological co-authorship of Yuri Kalashnov and Pyotr Bankov) and the magazine “Money”. It presented about 1,000 variants of the ruble symbol from 300 authors. During this action, for the first time in modern history, evidence of the existence of the ruble sign in the 17th-19th centuries was found. At the same time, they surveyed about 1,000 people who were asked the question “Does the Russian ruble need a symbol similar to the signs of the dollar, pound sterling, euro and other currencies?” More than 85% of respondents spoke positively.

The third was the competition “Draw the symbol of the ruble!”, which was held in 2005–2006 by the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, and which became the most widespread in terms of the number of applications submitted: more than 5,000 sketches were received.

The fourth competition, entitled “Create a Ruble Sign,” was held in 2006 by RIA Novosti. The organizers received about 300 proposals, the best of which were submitted to the State Duma and the Central Bank of Russia.

There were a huge number of individual initiatives expressed in letters directly to government bodies (the State Duma and the Central Bank of Russia) and even an image of the ruble sign was registered in the Russian Authors' Society.

In addition, VTsIOM conducted a public opinion study published on May 25, 2006 in the Izvestia newspaper, which found the signs based on the sketch of Vladimir Efimov (Latin “R” with a double leg) and Tagir Safaev (Latin “R” with horizontal lines at the top of the leg) suitable ).

And only in 2006, the problem of introducing the ruble symbol was raised at the state level: in June, an amendment to the Law “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” was adopted, which supplemented the functions of the Bank with one more: approval of the graphic designation of the sign by the Bank of Russia.

To date, experts from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation have done some work. In particular, the bank's working group approved the requirements for the ruble sign on March 14, 2007.

The author of this sign is the artist Alexander Tarbeev, and the main popularizer is Artemy Lebedev, so this version of the ruble symbol is sometimes called the “Lebedev-Tarbeev sign.” The initiators of the action, without waiting for the sign to be approved at the official level, began to use this symbol in the development of new fonts.

The official decision of the Bank of Russia as of August 1, 2011 has not been announced. And there is no information about this on the website of the Central Bank of Russia.

Most common options

In fact, at present, two variants of the design of ruble symbols are more actively used.

First of all, the lowercase letter “p” with a dot, which appears “by default”, for example, in the settings of formats for displaying financial values ​​in Russian versions of Excel spreadsheets from Microsoft, as well as Google spreadsheets. A variation of this symbol is the capital letter “P” with a dot, which is considered as a candidate for approval by the Central Bank of Russia. Abbreviation "r." has been used to denote the ruble since at least the 19th century.

The “Lebedev-Tarbeev sign” is used less actively. A variation of this sign is the first monument to the ruble, which was installed in Dimitrovgrad. The authors proposed two capital letters “R” (“Russia” and “Ruble”) combined with each other as a symbol of “the unity of the state and its monetary unit”.

It turned out to be an “P” with a crossed out leg.

Criteria for choosing the “Ruble Sign” symbol

Difference from the writing characters adopted in the main font systems, primarily in Latin and Cyrillic;

Simplicity of graphics;

Intuitively understandable to any representative of Russian-speaking culture. First of all, the sign is being introduced into internal circulation, which means that its correct perception by Russians is more important than by foreigners;

Convenience of writing a sign by hand. In addition, the most reliable and fastest memorization is motor;

Monosyllabicity. A single grapheme character takes up less space and is read faster. A single-component sign is easier to enter into a tabular set, which is very important in this case;

Font independent. A symbol is introduced into everyday use, not a sign of a specific font. Such a sign can be stylized to match any existing or future font when introducing the ruble sign into it;

Uniformity in density. Areas that are not overloaded with too small strokes become of great importance in small-scale typesetting. The symbol must be clearly readable in the fourth point of the font;

The width of the sign should be no greater than that of the widest number - zero.

The sign is understandable to a foreigner familiar with the Latin writing of characters;

The presence of unusualness within the normal range, which contributes to memory and recognition.

However, sometimes other options are used publicly. Thus, sometimes the abbreviation “rub.” is considered as a symbol for the ruble, which can be written either as a ligature or with a separate drawing of the letters.