SWAMPFUL OF OLD SOVIET BANKNOTES FOUND

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 22, May 28, 2017, Article 37

A group of explorers in Russia have found around a billion roubles in old Soviet money at an abandoned mine, but it's all completely worthless.

The group from Saint Petersburg, who publish a blog on abandoned sites across Russia, came across the money after following rumours that large quantities of cash had been dumped in old missile silos near Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Komsomolskaya Pravda news website reports. After travelling for several hours across rough terrain in Russia's Vladimir region, they found the mine literally overflowing with cash.

The site contains an estimated one billion roubles ($18m; £13.5m at current exchange rates, or $33.3m at the "official" Soviet rate in 1991) in Soviet Union banknotes of various denominations issued between 1961 and 1991, all no longer legal tender in the Russian Federation. The mine had been flooded in recent years, leaving what was essentially a swamp of banknotes bearing the face of Vladimir Lenin, the explorers' YouTube channel shows.

According to their account of events, elderly locals told the team about the mine, but said that nobody dared go near the place because it was linked to the Soviet Union's ballistic missile programme, and contaminated with radiation. However, Geiger counters showed that this was not the case.

Team member Olga Bogdanova said that the sight of such "riches" was difficult to convey in words. "There's delight and some sadness, because you realise that this is a bygone era which will never return, that all this money would have been more than enough for anybody," she said. Just 100 roubles would have been a very good salary back in Soviet times.

The video has caught the imagination of social media users, many of whom wish that the cash was still legal tender. "I would dive in there like Scrooge McDuck," says one user, while another exclaimed, "I wish I could have a time machine, return with a pack of those banknotes and buy myself a controlling stake in Google, Gazprom, Rosneft, and never work again."

It is quite interesting to hear about huge quantities of money disposed of in a mine. That is something that is not uncommon in the coal scrip world. To give some perspective, the exchange rate prior to the collapse of the USSR was 1 ruble = $1.60. I went there in early January 1992 barely 3 days after Yeltsin lifted the old price controls. At the time that I arrived, the exchange rate was 100 rubles to the dollar and by the time I left 10 days later it was anywhere from 150 to 200 to the dollar and rising.

They had only just introduced the 200 ruble note and were rolling out the 500 the last couple of days I was there. Some of the fixed prices were still in effect, like the Moscow Metro was 15 kopecks. The old Soviet notes (1961 series) were still in use but were rapidly replaced by several different design types dated 1991. I got a mix of notes while there, including a pack of 10 ruble notes with a band from the State Bank dated 25 December 1991 - the day Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union.