The history of licence plates

What's a licence plate actually for? First and foremost, to keep strict records of vehicles, and to more quickly find the culprit in a road accident, a traffic offender, or a stolen vehicle.

When did the first car licence plate appear? Legend has it that at the start of the century, a Berlin merchant named Rudolf Herzog fell in love with a girl called Johanna Anker. His love was so great that, having bought a car, he fixed a plate to its front bearing the monogram "IA I," whose letters matched his beloved's initials, while the number "1" stood for his first and only love. But joking aside, it's generally held that the first car licence plate was issued in Munich on 14 April 1899, for a "Wartburg" belonging to the Bösebart brothers. A year or two later, car licence plates started being fitted to vehicles in Paris, New York and London.

Licence plates appeared on the first cars in Russia almost right away. This wasn't some new or unusual development. There is a record that as far back as 1812, one of the state decrees spoke of the need to fit carts with tin plates bearing numbers. And at the end of the 19th century, the Moscow city duma required "tyre" cab operators to fit special numbers, so that violators of public order could be identified. The first cars in Moscow were issued numbers matching the registered vehicle's sequential number.

The first Soviet traffic rules of 1920 brought even more order to the use of car licence plates. "Every motor vehicle must carry two printed plates," they stated, "the front one on the left front fender, the rear one on the body or on a special stand, no lower than an arshin from the ground." The plate looked almost the same as it does today. Up until the mid-1930s, the information on plates kept changing. In Moscow, for a time, alongside the number, the letter "Ч" was also shown, indicating that the car belonged to a private owner, and the name of the city, "Moscow," was written on the plate too.

Starting in 1958, our country adopted a plate layout combining four digits and three letters. The letters usually matched the first letter of the region's or city's name.

At present, private owners are issued plates starting with a lowercase letter, followed by the usual 3 digits and 2 letters. The plate background was switched from black to white. Each region has been assigned its own number code. The rules require that a licence plate must not be obscured by any material and must be kept in a tidy condition. Given the unprecedented growth in the number of registered vehicles and the pace at which the ranks of car owners keep growing, the main internal affairs directorate is once again planning a switch to a 4-digit system for state plate numbers.