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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ZoidMeister, post: 25217352, member: 114169&quot;]More along the lines of Peter the Great, who saw what he believed were &quot;more culturally advanced societies&quot; in Europe with mostly clean shaven men, and wanted his society to adopt this look to equalize their trading status.&nbsp; Russia in the early 1700&#039;s I guess was pretty &quot;wild, wild, west.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Z</p><p><br /></p><p><i>&quot;Russia in the early 18th-century was a land of rapid and drastic change. It was on this stage that Peter the Great implemented his beard tax of 1705. Meant to force Russian men to shave their beards like the &quot;modern&quot; men of Western Europe, the tax was placed on any man who chose to keep their face unshaved. Those with the means and motivation to pay the tax were given a beard token just like this, to show city guards they had paid the tax and were free to display their majestic beards.</i></p><p><i>Both of the designs on this token are taken from the original beard tokens. On the obverse is a bearded face under a Cyrillic inscription which means, &quot;Money taken.&quot; This refers to the tax that the holder had paid. A leafy wreath along the rim encircles the words and the design.</i></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>The inscription for the year 2019 dominates the reverse. A Russian Imperial Eagle is included above this inscription, while a Smithsonian Sun counterstamp is included below it. That counter stamp takes the place of contemporary counter stamps that would have indicated a second or third year of tax had been paid on the originals. This face also has a wreath on the rim.&quot;</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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