What is the exchange rate of Russian to US dollar from 1985-2006?

www.oanda.com will give you daily exchange rate back to October 1995 for the ruble/dollar

In 1985 The ruble was fixed at $1.03 per ruble.

Today a ruble is worth about 3.5 cents. but in 1998 there was a devaluation of 1000:1 so an old ruble would be worth .0035 cents today.

Note: Be careful about data much before 1996. There wasn%26#039;t exactly an active floating exchange for the currencies. There was the %26quot;Official%26quot; rate the government of the USSR and later Russia set, and then there was what you could actually trade it for on the street.

For example: In 1993 when I was there the official rate was something like 5 rubles to the dollar (20 cents) but the street rate was 1000 rubles to the dollar (.1 cent). I remember it cost 6 kopeks (less than a penny) to use the metro (subway).

So in theory in 1985 10,000 rubles was worth $10,000 (the price of a new car) assuming you could exchange it. Today that 10,000 rubles, assuming someone would even exchange the old paper, is worth 35 cents (a few sticks of gum, a short phone call, or a couple of bananas.)

This was a very real situation for Russians. Everyone had savings worth a new car, but there were no cars or anything else for that matter to buy so Russians lined up to buy whatever there was. Once things changed goods were plentiful, but all those savings had become worthless, and retirees had to deal with the fact that they had pensions that once offered a comfortable living which overnight were not even worth $10 a month.