3 Roubles Foreign Trade Certificate

Soviet Vneshposyltorg certificates were not currency in any conventional sense — they were instruments of a closed-loop hard-currency substitution system, issued to Soviet citizens who received foreign remittances or were paid in convertible currency for work abroad. The 3-rouble denomination could be spent only at Beryozka shops, where imported goods unavailable through the ordinary retail network were legally accessible. Holding foreign cash directly was a criminal offense; this paper was the sanctioned workaround.

The 1976 series introduced a blue stripe series coding, distinguishing it from the earlier yellow-stripe issues used for a different payment tier.