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5 Kopecks Foreign Exchange Certificate
| Issuer | Bank for Foreign Trade of the USSR (Vneshtorgbank) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1973-1975 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Plain light-pink ground with Cyrillic text across the upper portion naming the issuing bank and series year. A guilloche rosette frames the numeral '5' at right, with the denomination КОПЕЕК below. Two manuscript signatures appear at centre-lower, with a usage clause in small Cyrillic text along the bottom edge. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse is plain unprinted paper, showing only a faint offset impression of the obverse design visible through the thin paper stock. |
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| Comments |
Vneshtorgbank's Foreign Exchange Certificates were a parallel currency system designed to capture hard currency earnings from Soviet citizens and foreigners without allowing genuine convertibility. The series introduced in 1973 replaced an earlier certificate system and came in two distinct stripe types — those with a yellow stripe were issued to Soviet citizens receiving foreign remittances, while those with a blue stripe went to foreign visitors. The distinction mattered enormously in practice: only blue-stripe notes could be spent at Beryozka hard-currency shops on the full range of imported goods.
The 5-kopeck denomination was the lowest in the series, issued partly to ensure complete change-making parity with regular Soviet coinage.