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5 Kopecks

Issuer Arktikugol Trust (USSR Ministry of Coal Industry)
Year 1979
Type Local banknote
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Reverse description Plain light grey field with a repeated microtext underprint pattern. A single teal guilloche rosette vignette bearing the numeral '5' is centred at the top. Below it, two lines of Cyrillic text in teal letterpress state the conditions of use and the obligation to return unused vouchers to the enterprise cashier.
Reverse lettering ПРИ УТЕРЕ НЕ ВОЗОБНОВЛЯЕТСЯ
НЕИСПОЛЬЗОВАННЫЕ ТАЛОНЫ ПОДЛЕЖАТ ВОЗВРАТУ
В КАССУ ПРЕДПРИЯТИЯ
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Arktikugol — the Soviet state trust that operated coal mines on the Svalbard archipelago — issued its own scrip currency for use at Barentsburg and Pyramiden, the two Soviet settlements on Norwegian-administered territory. Because Norwegian law governed the islands under the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty, ordinary Soviet rubles had no legal basis for circulation there, and importing hard currency was politically inconvenient. Scrip was the functional solution.

The 1979 series replaced earlier issues as the mining population stabilized. Denominations circulated in the settlement stores and canteens, redeemable only within the Arktikugol system — worthless the moment a worker stepped onto the mainland ferry.

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