1 Ruble

The Russian-American Company was a chartered trading monopoly granted exclusive rights over Russian Alaska and the North Pacific fur trade. Its paper notes — issued in denominations including this 1 Rubl' — circulated as the sole medium of exchange within the company's Alaskan settlements, where coined money was both scarce and impractical to import. Workers, hunters, and indigenous laborers received payment in these notes and could only redeem them at company stores, a closed system that effectively bound the workforce to the issuer.

The series ran across nearly four decades under successive company charters, which is why the reference spans 1816–1852 rather than a single year. Notes from the earlier issues are considerably rarer; most known survivors date from the later renewal period.