1 Rouble Sergei Korolev

Korolev spent years in a Stalinist labor camp after being denounced in 1938 — likely by a rival engineer — and ran much of the early Soviet space program as an anonymous "Chief Designer," his identity classified until after his death in 1966. The Soviet government feared his value as an assassination target, and Western space agencies spent years trying to identify who was actually beating them.

Transnistria's habit of issuing commemoratives honoring Soviet-era scientific figures reflects the breakaway republic's particular relationship with that history, unrecognized by any UN member state.