1 Kopeck Foreign Exchange Certificate

Vneshtorgbank's Foreign Exchange Certificates — the so-called "yellow series" — were introduced to manage hard currency access within the Soviet closed economy. Foreigners, diplomats, and Soviet citizens with legitimate foreign earnings received these in exchange for convertible currency; they could then spend them at Beryozka shops, which stocked imported goods unavailable through ordinary Soviet retail channels. The system effectively created a two-tier economy operating in parallel with the ruble.

The 1-kopeck denomination is the lowest of the series — functionally change, but change that implied access to a world most Soviet citizens could not legally enter. Notes from this yellow series are distinguished from the later blue series issued for socialist-country currencies and the red series for Eastern Bloc earnings.