National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus



"Thieves' Money or History of Counterfeiting" exhibition

  • 17.05.2018

On May 17, 2018 the "Thieves' Money or History of Counterfeiting" exhibition will be opened at the National History Museum of the Republic of Belarus .The project was prepared jointly with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus and the History Department of the Belarusian State University.

The history of counterfeiting is almost the same as the history of money. The desire to illegally enrich through the forgery of legal means of payment is recorded almost in all parts of the world and in all historical periods. This phenomenon did not bypass the territory of Belarus. In the last centuries, with the development of numismatic collectibles, a new branch has appeared in the manufacture of counterfeit money – the production of so–called antique fakes, which are made for sale to collectors, and not for money circulation.

The exhibition reflects not only counterfeiting as a crime, but also the spoiling of money at the state level, the creation of antiquarian fakes.

The exposition presents fake coins and banknotes, documentary extracts about the most famous cases of counterfeiters, tools for counterfeit coins and banknotes, antiquarian fakes. For the purpose of comparison, most of the counterfeits are located next to the originals. The exhibition features items from the collections of the National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus, the Museum of Criminalistics attached to the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, the Museum of the Center for Cultural and Educational Work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, the Museum of the Historical Faculty of the Belarusian State University, as well as private collections – the museum of the agro–tourist complex "Nanosy–Housewarming" and etc.

Much attention is paid to the temporary exposure of the topic of criminal liability for counterfeiting in different periods of history from the Middle Ages to the present.

National Historical Museum of the Republic of Belarus

Minsk, K.Marx str., 12

Phone: 327–43–22