The banknote has been put into circulation on March 12, 2012. The 200,000-rubel note bears an image of the Mahiliou Regional Art Museum, a building erected between 1903 and 1914 and designed in a pseudo-Russian post-classical style.
It was not by accident that a building in Mahiliou was chosen, NBB deputy head Uladzimir Syanko noted. «Earlier issued notes feature structures located in all other regions of our country: Vitsebsk, Minsk, Horadnia and other cities, and now it is the turn of Mahiliou,» he explained.
On the reverse side of the note the collage of museum architectural elements is depicted.
According to Mr. Syanko, although new up-to-date anti-counterfeit features have been applied, the previous ones remain on the banknote as well. The new note will be delivered to banks in the near future. Its issue does not get reported.
In opinion of Stanislau Bagdankevich, the former Head of NBB, the largest note might well have been of 1,000,000 BYR. «What is the largest note of denomination equal to $25? I suppose it should be equal to $100,» he pointed out.
However, his point of view has not been shared by George Gryts, Deputy Head of the Belarusian Confederation of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (BCIE). «The new bank note of 500,000 or 1,000,000 BYR is the road to nowhere. It is not the printing of new notes that should be cared about. And by the way, it is an expensive operation,» he stressed.
According to the expert, if the integration process in the Customs Union develops at such rate, a brand-new currency will be put into circulation in the Common Economic Space (CES) on a mid-term horizon.
Belsat
