Commissariat. In May 1918, the Transcaucasia Commissariat was dissolved, and establishment of three independent republics followed thereafter. On May 28, 1918, Hovhannes Kajaznuni was appointed as Prime Minister and Sargis Araratyan and, later on Grigor Jaghetyan, as Minister of Finance of the First Republic of Armenia. In 1918–1919 the monetary system of the country was completely ruined, the state Treasury was unable to cover current expenses and make much-needed allocations. In order to retrench public expenditures and increase revenue the Government decided to raise the taxes, cut down subsidies, downsize the number of state servants, and create new jobs. The Government had to carry out an additional issue to cover the current expenses. “The Government covered growing public expenditures by issuing banknotes, the printing machine was functioning smoothly and quickly, printing 600–800 million rubles monthly. Naturally, such flood of money reflected to a great extent the commercial and industrial situation of the country and the high cost of living. Food prices grew at an abnormal rate”, Prime Minister Simon Vratsyan wrote. The Government was issuing unsecured paper money in large number. From August 1919 through December 1920 checks worth 11 billion rubles were issued, which was equal to gold worth 6 million rubles. This led to inflation. Whereas in the summer of 1919 the gold chervonets of Russian Empire (10 rubles) was estimated to amount to 900 rubles in checks, the next summer it was already worth 200,000 rubles. On August 20, 1920, the law on “Counterfeiting” was passed. The law stipulated, in particular, that capital punishment could be sentenced to anyone, who would have any association to forgery, and/or supply tools and materials to the forger for counterfeiting. On October 26, 1920, another law was passed with the goal to turn the Yerevan branch of the State Bank into the State Bank of the Republic of Armenia. However, the implementation of this law failed as a decree on nationalization of banks was adopted on December 20, 1920, after the Bolsheviks came to power. In the framework of credit policy, the Government of the Republic of Armenia took measures in order to halt inflation and turn the State Bank into a functioning institute, since it was the Ministry of Finance who was responsible for implementing banking operations. The Armenian Government attempted to supply a British bank in Batumi with Armenian checks at certain exchange rate. Attempts also included keeping some