20 Roubles Foreign Trade Certificate

Foreign Trade Certificates — Vneshtorgbank's hard-currency substitute — were introduced in 1961 to allow Soviet citizens who received foreign earnings to spend them at Beriozka shops without handling actual Western currency. The blue-series certificates, of which this is one, were issued specifically for transactions with socialist-bloc countries, distinguished from the yellow series reserved for hard-currency earners from capitalist nations. The distinction mattered enormously in practice: blue certificates could not purchase the same range of imported goods available to yellow-series holders.

The two-tier structure was quietly abolished in 1988.