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In 1698, Peter the Great returned to Moscow from his grand tour of Western Europe convinced that Russia needed modernising by decree. One of his first measures went straight for the chin: beards, the symbol of old Russia, had to go.
He is said to have shaved several nobles himself at a reception. But the tsar understood incentives: anyone who wanted to keep their beard could do so... for a price. Thus was born the beard tax, with rates depending on the wearer's rank: wealthy merchants could pay enormous sums a year, while peasants paid a small coin at the city gates.
Those who paid received a copper token as proof, the 'beard kopek', to show if anyone stopped them in the street.
Russia entered modernity, among other ways, by charging for facial hair.