Russia would like to change this practice, at least among its customers, as a means of elevating the importance of the ruble, a new source of national pride after gaining 30 percent against the dollar during the current oil boom.

In a speech on economic policy this month, Dmitri A. Medvedev, a deputy prime minister and the likely successor to President Vladimir V. Putin in elections on March 2, said Russia should seize opportunities created by the weak dollar.

“Today, the global economy is going through uneasy times,” Mr. Medvedev said. “The role of the key reserve currencies is under review. And we must take advantage of it.” He asserted that “the ruble will de facto become one of the regional reserve currencies.”

Other oil-exporting countries are also chafing at dealing in the weakening dollar.

Since 2005, Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, has tried to open a commodity exchange to trade oil in currencies other than the dollar. The Iranian ambassador to Russia said Iran might choose rubles to free his country from “dollar slavery.”

To be sure, some economists have dismissed the project as improbable, given the exotic nature of a security  oil futures contracts denominated in rubles  that would blend currency risk with the dollar-based global oil market.

Ruble-denominated futures contracts for Ural Blend, the main Russian grade, would be attractive only if the dollar continues to depreciate, said Vitaly Y. Yermakov, research director for Russian and Caspian energy at Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

“There is a big distance between the desire to trade commodities for rubles and the ability to do so,” he said.