I need the Ruble to USD exchange rate for 1970-2004. I have been able
to find data back to 1985, but not prior to that, in my own searches.
This is a rather urgent search, so any help would be appreciated!
Thanks!

As far as I can remember the Ruble to USD exchange rate had been the
same from 1961 until 1985. 1.00 Ruble had been costing 0.9 USD.
(However, the amount of money, which was allowed for exchange, had
been extremely limited). In those years there used to be a lot of
boasting about that fact in Soviet newspapers.

The Soviet Union set the exchange rate at 0.8 rubles to the U.S.
dollar prior to 1988.

This was almost entirely meaningless, however, since the ruble was not
traded on legitimate currency exchanges during that time. It was
illegal to take rubles out of the Soviet Union, hence they could not
be spent elsewhere and therefore could not be traded outside the
U.S.S.R.

Tourists could exchange currency at official locations in the U.S.S.R.
but there was little incentive to do so, since black market rates were
much higher.

See:
http://www.okno.com/ewltr/archive/vol1/ru-ruble-v1n3.pdf
http://www.cato.org/special/berlinwall/crane1982.html

Alan Kali

Thank you so much for these comments. Very helpful!!