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3 Roubles Barnaul; PoW Camp

Issuer Kriegsgefangenenlager Barnaul (Barnaul Prisoner of War Camp)
Year 1919
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Composition Paper
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Obverse lettering 3 РУБ
KGLAGER BARNAUL
(Translation: Three roubles. Barnaul prisoner of war camp.)
Reverse description Plain unprinted verso in aged yellowish paper, bearing a handwritten authorization signature in blue ink applied diagonally across the centre, consistent with a camp official's countersignature validating the voucher for circulation.
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Comments

Barnaul, deep in western Siberia, was one of dozens of improvised PoW facilities that emerged during the chaos of World War One and its immediate aftermath. By 1919, the camp at Barnaul held primarily Austro-Hungarian and German prisoners, and the collapse of any coherent financial administration in the region — this was the height of the Russian Civil War, with Kolchak's White forces nominally controlling the area — made internal scrip a practical necessity rather than a bureaucratic formality.

These camp issues were produced locally under extremely limited means. The printing quality reflects that. Survival rates are low not because of destruction programs but simple attrition — most were discarded or lost when prisoners were repatriated or the camp dissolved.

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