Coins of the island of Svalbard

A little story of a small place. Svalbard is a set of islands that are located in the area of ​​the Arctic Ocean. In 1920, these islands joined Norway. At that time, Norway was referred to as the Kingdom of Norway. A little later, in 1932, the USSR were able to rent a number of islands. In particular, this concerned two villages – the Pyramid and Barentsburg. These villages were of interest to the Soviet Union, since there was a very large coal deposit there. And the infrastructure was built in the form of fairly modern mines.

Coal mining was entrusted to a state-owned company called Arktikugol. Recall that in the Soviet Union there were no private companies, only state-owned. Continue reading →