During the 19th century one of the most interesting topics for Russian numismatists was the special coinage struck in Crimea during 1787 and 1788. This peninsula, which juts into the Black Sea, had long been a possession of the Ottoman Turks, but in the eighteenth century the rulers of Moscow, especially Peter the Great (1689–1725), moved southward in an effort to reclaim what was once Russian.
Under Catherine the Great (1762–1796) these efforts bore fruit and the Russian Empire moved ever closer to the Turkish frontier, just above the Crimea. In April 1769 Catherine ordered the invasion of Moldavia-Wallachia, a region roughly corresponding to modern Romania.
One of the provisions of the Treaty of 1774, ending this latest Russo-Turkish War, was the stipulation that Crimea be semi-independent under the rule of Shahin Giray ben Ahmad Giray, who had assumed power in 1771. This ruler minted special copper and silver coins as proof of his sovereignty but in real terms he was increasingly a Russian puppet. The most well-known of his copper coins is the piece equivalent to the Russian 5 kopeks, called the kyrmis but an even larger tschal was equal to 10 kopeks.
Shahin Giray's mint was nominally at Bagchiserai, but in 1780 this was enlarged by a separate entity
