This voucher is accepted as payment for goods and services.
From the early 1960s, the USSR began to develop active cooperation with socialist and developing countries. Thousands of Soviet specialists were sent abroad on assignments. The government faced the question of how to “protect” them from foreign currency.
A practical need arose to create a system in which citizens would not receive foreign currency in their hands and would spend the funds earned in foreign currency at home.
The most important parts of the new system were the USSR Bank for Foreign Trade (Vneshtorgbank of the USSR) and the all-Union association Vnesposyltorg. In the former, citizens were required to keep foreign currency in the form of “invalyutny rubles,” and through the network of Vnesposyltorg stores and firms, to spend it.
It is important to note that, unlike other socialist countries, “substitutes” for currency in the USSR were issued not for foreigners, but for its own citizens.
A detachable voucher of Series A—for sailors of Vnesheconombank (Vneshtorgbank) of the USSR—constituted a monetary obligation of Vnesheconombank (Vneshtorgbank) of the USSR to pay the amount specified on the voucher. The vouchers were bound into checkbooks of the corresponding denomination. Detachable vouchers could be exchanged for goods in port cities of the USSR at stores of the “Albatross” system of the “Torgmortrans” organization. All vouchers were printed by Goznak.