Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago, but under the 1920 Paris Treaty the Soviet state—and later modern Russia, as its legal successor—has conducted coal mining on the islands. The “Arktikugol” trust owns 250 km² of the islands’ territory, where people live and work to ensure the electrical safety of the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions, as well as the Northern Fleet.
For the first time, scrip was issued on Svalbard in 1916. Such exchange scrip was used by miners from the southern regions of the USSR who came to Svalbard under contract.
The “Arktikugol” trust began issuing not metal tokens, as other companies did, but paper notes. The issuance of currency substitutes started in 1931.
No year was indicated on them; they were printed so that workers could make purchases only in Soviet trading enterprises based on the island of Svalbard.
In 1961, the “Arktikugol” trust was transferred from the Ministry of the Coal Industry to the Ministry of the Merchant Fleet. When in 1979 the company was transferred back, new scrip of the 8th issue of the “Arktikugol” trust was released with a new design.
Despite Norway’s sovereignty, Soviet influence on Svalbard was very significant: in the 1980s more than 2,000 Soviet citizens lived on Svalbard, and only about 1,000 Norwegians (now 1,800 Norwegians and 500 Russian citizens). In our settlements of Barentsburg, Grumant, and Pyramiden (the latter two are now abandoned), large-scale coal development was carried out; unique mines and underground railways were in operation. By the end of the 1980s, coal reserves on Svalbard had been significantly depleted, and the Norwegian government reoriented the archipelago toward tourism and an expedition-and-research base: today Svalbard’s economy is profitable and self-sustaining. “Arktikugol,” however, was unable to cope with such a task.