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25 Roubles Northern Camps
| Issuer | Glavnoye Upravleniye Severnykh Lagerey (Chief Administration of the Northern Camps), NKVD USSR |
|---|---|
| Year | 1937 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 90 × 65 mm |
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| Obverse description | Plain white paper ground printed entirely in blue ink by letterpress. A decorative border of repeating geometric and symbolic motifs — circles, stars, squares, and diamonds — frames the entire note on all four sides. Within the border, the issuing authority inscription appears at the top in two lines, followed by the curved legend РАСЧЕТНЫЙ ЧЕК (Commissary Cheque) arching above the large bold numeral 25 at centre. The denomination in words and the year appear below in uppercase Cyrillic lettering. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Hand-applied octagonal control stamp in blue-violet ink on the reverse, bearing the NKVD USSR Camp No. 9 designation as an authentication and control mark. |
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| Comments |
Gulag scrip, not currency in any conventional sense. The Chief Administration of Northern Camps — one of the NKVD's sprawling labor camp directorates — issued these notes for internal use within the camp economy, where prisoners and free workers alike were nominally paid in scrip redeemable only at camp stores. The 1937 date places this squarely within the Great Terror, when the northern camp population was expanding at a pace the administration could barely manage.
The official stamp served as the primary authentication device — printing infrastructure in remote camp complexes was rarely sophisticated enough for embedded security features.