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Soviet rubles became trash: where untold "riches" of the USSR times are buried

Anna OnishchenkoLife
Ruble dump

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is no exaggeration to say that tons of rubles had to be disposed of in some way. Strangely enough, the Soviets chose the cheapest option possible and simply threw them away.

Even today, you can see currency burial grounds located outside of civilization, where bags of Soviet money emerge from the stinking dirt. Blogger Lana Sator shared photos of such a dump.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the former republics began to introduce their currencies, so a problem arose: what to do with Soviet rubles. They no longer had any value, and the only correct solution was to recycle them. However, it turned out to be too expensive. A more budget-friendly option was to throw tons of bills into old abandoned missile silos.

Soviet rubles became trash: where untold ''riches'' of the USSR times are buried

There are still many such cemeteries far outside of settlements, but the most popular one is located in Russia in the Vladimir region at coordinates 56.3195, and 39.9587.

Soviet rubles became trash: where untold ''riches'' of the USSR times are buried

Usually, unwanted banknotes were disposed of or recycled.

They could, for example, be sent to a paper mill, where they were loaded into special boilers where steam was fed under high pressure. As a result, the ink was washed off the banknotes and they were broken down into fibers that could be reused to produce items such as paper towels or toilet paper. However, the process was labor-intensive and expensive and harmed the environment.

Soviet rubles became trash: where untold ''riches'' of the USSR times are buried

There were also attempts to use banknotes as fuel, but the special paper used to produce money gave off too much heat when burned. Due to the high temperature, it was necessary to use cement kilns. However, the process of such recycling was almost impossible to automate, which would have required heavy and dangerous manual labor.

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