3 Roubles Arktikugol

Arktikugol — the Soviet coal-mining trust operating on the Svalbard archipelago — issued its own scrip currency for use at the Barentsburg settlement, a practical necessity given that Svalbard's treaty status under the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty barred Norway from levying taxes on Soviet operations there. Using ordinary Soviet roubles would have created awkward hard-currency exposure, so the trust circulated its own denominated coupons internally, redeemable only within the company settlement.

The 1961 series coincides with the Khrushchev-era redenomination of the Soviet rouble, suggesting the scrip was updated to align with the new monetary scale.