Coupon (card) 1 Kopeck 1992.
Izhevsk. Pervomaysky RPT.

Ration card system — a system of supplying the population with consumer goods under conditions of shortage. Under this system, in order to buy a product one must not only pay money for it, but also present a single-use coupon granting the right to purchase it. Ration cards (coupons) set specific per-person monthly consumption norms for goods.
The essence of the coupon system is that to buy a scarce product it is necessary not only to pay money, but also to hand over a special coupon authorizing the purchase of that product.

Coupons for food and certain consumer goods were obtained at one’s place of residence registration from the housing office. At the workplace (usually through the trade-union committee), distribution of some foods and manufactured goods was organized, received through barter between enterprises.

The reason for the emergence of the coupon system was the shortage of certain widely used consumer goods.

The purpose of introducing coupons was to provide the population with a minimally guaranteed set of goods. Demand was supposed to decrease, since without a coupon the corresponding goods were, in practice, not sold in the state retail network. In practice, it was sometimes impossible to use coupons if the relevant goods were not available in stores. Some goods, if they were in surplus, were sold without coupons, although coupons were issued even for such items as salt.

Without a coupon, goods could be purchased at markets and from speculators.

The assumed consumption norm could differ depending on the status of a locality; for example, when butter rationing was introduced in the Chelyabinsk Region in 1981, the norm for Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, and five other large cities was 200 grams per person per month; for some smaller towns it was 150 grams; for most localities it was 100 grams. The extent to which coupons could actually be redeemed for a specific type of product could vary; for example, with a guaranteed norm of 2 kilograms of meat products per person per month, in the Chelyabinsk Region in 1983 coupons were redeemed as 67% sausage, 23% poultry meat, and 10% beef and pork (mainly for war invalids and diabetics). In 1985 the supply situation for meat products worsened, and coupons were redeemed mostly for boiled sausages, pork, and lean mutton.

Perestroika, on the one hand, partially abolished mandatory state deliveries, and on the other hand eliminated the foreign trade monopoly, as a result of which exporting enterprises and cooperatives accumulated a large amount of money not backed by commodity supply. This led to increased shortages of certain goods and some expansion of the coupon system; and as shortages grew in 1989–1990, coupons were introduced everywhere for many food products and some other goods (tobacco products, vodka, sausage, soap, tea, groats, salt, sugar, and in some cases, in remote areas, bread, milk, mayonnaise, laundry detergent, women’s underwear, etc.).

Since large and “closed” cities of the USSR were supplied with food better than the provinces, in attempts to stop non-residents from taking scarce goods out of the cities (meat, meat and fish products), the leadership of certain cities began to propose introducing meat coupons. In the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, due to the growing food shortage, in some cities and regions of the country (Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Vologda, Zheleznogorsk, and others) attempts were made to regulate consumption by introducing rationing and coupons for certain types of food (meat, meat products, sausage, butter).

The coupon system began to be introduced on a large scale in 1989 and became most widespread in 1990–1991, when total shortages reached their peak, and products began to disappear both meat-related and ordinary ones that previously had not been in short supply: sugar, groats, vegetable oil, and others.

The coupon system faded out starting in early 1992 in connection with price liberalization, which caused hyperinflation (in 1992 alone prices increased 26-fold) and the spread of free trade. For a number of goods in some regions, coupons remained in use longer.

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