Suzun

Suzun grew beside a copper smelter and mint on the Lower Suzun River, west of the upper Ob. Construction began in 1764 as part of the imperial Kolyvan–Voskresensk mining works. A dam formed a pond whose water powered the machinery, while a settlement grew up around the works and the people employed there.

The mint began striking Siberian copper coins in 1766, using metal produced at the smelter. Peter Simon Pallas, who travelled through Siberia, described the mint enclosed by a guarded wooden stockade, with workshops for preparing dies, rolling metal and making coins. Siberian coinage circulated across the vast region from Tara to Kamchatka. In 1781 the mint changed to the designs and standards of copper coins used throughout the Russian Empire.