1 Rouble Valery Chkalov

Valery Chkalov completed the first non-stop transpolar flight from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington in June 1937, covering over 9,000 kilometers in 63 hours alongside co-pilots Georgy Baidukov and Alexander Belyakov. Stalin personally championed Chkalov as a national hero, and the timing of his commemorative rouble — issued well after his death in a 1938 test flight crash — reflects the Soviet state's careful management of heroic mythology long past the fact.