YEKATERINBURG, April 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Workers of a mint factory in Southern Urals have minted 25 palm-size silver commemorative coins weighing one kilogram each in memory of Crimea's reunification with Russia, said Director General of one of the enterprises in Chelyabinsk Vladimir Vasyukhin, who suggested the idea.
“Crimea's reunification with Russia was a historic event which we decided to embody in a souvenir collection of coins made of 925 grade silver,” he said. On the front side is a bas-relief featuring President Putin; a symbolic globe with a contour of Crimea, including 28 settlements, is on the reverse side.
Historical words from a resolution of the Russian government on the reunification of Crimea with Russia are embossed on every coin provided with its own number engraved on its side.
The athletes who won the gold at the Olympics on February 15, the day when a huge meteorite fell near Chelyabinsk a year ago, got an extra medal with fragments of the celestial body
The cost of the collection has not been counted yet; the authors of the collection are planning to give a few coins in gift to the Russian leadership.
It is not a first commemorative souvenir minted by the Urals coiners. On February 15 the winners of the Sochi Olympic Games were awarded with commemorative medals in silver, yellow and blue shades with encrusted tiny fragments of the notorious Chelyabinsk meteorite in metallic frames. Ten out of 50 souvenir medals were presented to the Sochi Olympic champions. The remainder were turned over to the Chelyabinsk history museum and private collections.