The story of Russian farmer Mikhail Shlyapnikov and his 'self-made' money has become something of a sensation of late, and has long travelled beyond the confines of Kolionovo, the village where he lives. The Moscow Prosecutor's Office is now investigating Shlyapnikov's currency (named koliony after his village) and its creator on suspicion of infringing the state's monopoly on issuing currency.
Mikhail Shlyapnikov with supporters in the town of Kolionovo. via michael-077.livejournal.com
A remote and tiny village, Kolionovo lies at the end of a small road just off a highway leading west out of the Russian capital. And Kolionovo would have remained remote, tiny and unknown, if it wasn't for the periodic scandal about how the village's elderly residents have chased the local administration out of town, the campaign to save the village hospital, the self-organised firefighting service or the ban on public officials entering the village without a document testifying to their mental health and a recent fluorography test for tuberculosis. But now the residents of Kolionovo have devised their own currency and, in doing so, have written themselves into a wider history – a history of alternative currency and anarchism.
