http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060712/51273365.html

How would such high denomination banknote reduce the number of counterfeit notes in circulation?

Quite simply. Instead of having to produce fifty fake 1000 ruble notes, I would make only ten 5000 ruble notes. But 5000 rubles is not that much; about €150 ...

Christian

Perhaps because at that value people would be more cautious in accepting the notes and less prone to get stung.

Here's a picture of it.

Looks nice

Agreed, but why does it say "1997"? I understand it is part, or a continuation, of the series issued in 1997. But the denomination is new, right?

Christian

In Russia you have to put a date on notes to avoid confusions with all the revaluations over the years. When I was in Khabarovsk in 1991 and the 1991 dated notes were superseding the 1961 notes there was a lot of anxiety over whether the 1961 notes would be recalled in as in the past when new currency was released.

Makes sense ... But then why not put "2006" on a note that was/is first issued in 2006?

Christian

Then people get anxious about another currency revaluation, just like back in 1997, and 1961, 1947 etc.

Uh-oh. No, we don't really want that to happen ...

Came across another article which explains what is depicted on the note:
http://english.newslab.ru/news/197451
(That language I understand a little better than Russian. )

Christian

WOW.

I just saw some features of the 5000 ruble note on NTB (don't ask me why Russian news airs here, and it was a coincedence that I flipped to that channel and saw it)

Appearently the design and security of the 5000 ruble note seems to be almost similar to the 1000 ruble notes, and hence, counterfeiters could roughly countefeit such notes before release and using similar counterfeiting techniques. What foiled them was actually two criticial points, one of which was the UV hidden design in macro design and the alightment and security of the metallic thread.

Those two technologies aren't too terribly new but fortunately that was what that foiled the counterfeiters - so much for them trying to release notes that wasn't before the issue date!