unique coins
Without coins
Starting from the 12th century, and then almost for almost three hundred years, there was a period without the use of coins in the territory of Ancient Russia. The whole paradox of this era was that with the development of cities, domestic and foreign trade, crafts, the number of coins in the territory of Russia not only did not increase, but on the contrary, decreased at a rapid pace. Thus, in the 12th century, coins disappeared altogether.
This period of history is often called the “dark period”, since the secret of the temporary disappearance of Russian monetary affairs is a great mystery, both for numismatists and for scholars of historians and archaeologists. Continue reading
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
