Caribbean P130h Russian print (!) 200p 2024 VF+ Very Fine Plus | Barracks from 1953

You receive a banknote from 2024 in the design indicated in Very Fine Plus condition.

This item is the variant printed in Russia and has the following differences from the domestically printed version:

• Series has three letters instead of two on the domestically printed notes
• Serial number is printed in good quality versus the domestic ones which seem to have a poorly maintained or old printing machine as most or all have one one number in the serial number "dropped", i.e. not horizontally aligned 

Front: Frαηκ Pαίs, student revolutionary

Back: Cιυdαd Escοlαr 26 de Jυlιο (formerly  Μοncαdα Βαrrαcκs), Sαntiαgo.

Imperial Russian State Paper and Printing Works, St. Petersburg

Goznak, Государственный знак, Gah-soo-DARST-vinny znahk
literally: “State Mark” or more fully “State Sign / State Security Printing”, was founded in 1818 as the Imperial Russian State Paper and Printing Works, in the then-capital city of St. Petersburg (alter renamed Petrograd, then Leningrad, now St. Petersburg again).

It was the official security printer for the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation today.

What it printed for the USSR

From 1921 to 1991, Goznak printed:

• All Soviet ruble banknotes

• State bonds

• Passports

• Postage stamps

• Internal republic notes (early Transcaucasian, Central Asian issues, etc.)

The style you know — engraved portraits, guilloché, microtext, heroic realism — is pure Goznak.

Foreign countries whose banknotes Goznak printed

Especially during the Cold War and decolonization, Goznak was a major printer for socialist, non-aligned, and developing states, including:

Europe: East Germany (GDR/DDR), Poland, Czechoslovakia (which itself also printed banknotes for the Caribbean island south of Miami), Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia (some issues)

Asia: Mongolia, the aligned part of Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, China (early PRC issues, some plates/assistance), and Afghanistan

Middle East: Iraq, Sγrια, South Yemen (Aden)

Africa: Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Somalia, Guinea, Mali, Benin (Dahomey), Congo (Brazzaville), Libya (some issues)

Americas: Island south of Miami, Nicaragua (Sandinista period)

Why countries used Goznak

• Politically aligned with USSR

• Needed:

  • High-security intaglio printing

  • Anti-counterfeiting

  • Cheap financing

• Western printers (De La Rue, Bradbury Wilkinson, ABN, Tumba Bruk) were often politically unavailable.

Fine artistic engraving quality

When you see:

• Deep, sculptural portrait engraving

• Heavy guilloché

• Socialist-realist aesthetics

• Cyrillic plate letters hidden in rosettes

…there is a very good chance the note was printed in St. Petersburg by Goznak.

It is the De La Rue of the socialist world — and in sheer artistic engraving quality, arguably even finer.

About these famous Barracks…

On July 26, 1953, a small, lightly armed band of young rebels launched a dawn attack on these Barracks, the second-largest military base on the island, located in the main city of the east of the island, Santiago.

Their bearded, cigar-smoking leader—who would later become the country's leader (1959–2008)—did not expect a conventional victory. The aim was to ignite a popular uprising, seize weapons, and crack the aura of permanence surrounding the ruling regime.

How it unfolded

• Timing: early morning during carnival, hoping soldiers would be distracted.

• Reality: miscommunications, missed rendezvous, and sheer bad luck. Units lost coordination almost immediately.

• Outcome: swift defeat. Many rebels were killed during or after capture; torture and summary executions followed.

The leader survived, was arrested, and put on trial. In court he delivered a long political defense—later circulated as a manifesto—arguing for land reform, education, and national sovereignty. It turned a failed raid into a moral indictment of the system.

The attack targeted the dictatorship that had ruled the country since a 1952 coup, led by a strongman who remained in power from 1952—1959.

Why it mattered (despite failure)

Militarily, the barracks event was a fiasco. Symbolically, it was decisive.

• The date gave its name to a new revolutionary movement.

• The imprisoned rebels were later amnestied, regrouped abroad, and returned to wage a guerrilla war that triumphed in 1959.

• It became the foundational myth: blood first, legitimacy later.

Today the barracks no longer serve a military function. They operate as a museum and school, their façade repainted in revolutionary colors—an early defeat recast as the opening chapter of a victorious narrative.

About Frank Pαίs

Frank Pαίs was one of the most important—and least flamboyant—figures of the island’s revolutionary struggle in the 1950s.

Born in Sαntiαgo in 1934, he was a schoolteacher by training: quiet, intensely disciplined, deeply ethical. While others became famous for battlefield exploits, País built the urban underground—cells, couriers, safe houses, arms caches, strikes, and sabotage—without which the rural insurgency would have collapsed. He coordinated student groups, workers, and middle-class supporters into a coherent clandestine network that could paralyze cities on command.

Pαίs served as the principal organizer of the July 26 Movement in the eastern region, effectively acting as its internal chief while the better-known leadership operated in exile or in the mountains. He planned and executed uprisings, including the major coordinated action of November 30, 1956, designed to support the return of the guerrilla force by sea. Even when that operation failed tactically, it demonstrated the reach and seriousness of the urban resistance.

In July 1957, at just 22 years old, Pαίs was captured by security forces and executed in the street. His killing provoked massive spontaneous protests and a general strike in Santiago—one of the clearest signs that the regime had lost moral authority in the cities.

Within the revolutionary narrative, País occupies a particular role:

• not the orator,

• not the battlefield commander,

• but the architect of internal legitimacy and logistics.

If the revolution had a conscience, it looked a lot like Frank País—methodical, incorruptible, and already thinking about governance while others were still thinking about victory.