Thursday, May 28, 2015
Photo a Day Challenge - 27.5.2015 - Borrowed.
In 1970, we enjoyed a month of travel across the USSR. Back in those days, when we knew we were heading to a new country we'd go to a local bank and buy some of that counties currency. The only country we were not able to buy currency for was the USSR. Some other Communist countries had the same rules but even banks had some of their currency under the desk and swapped US $'s for it at very favourable prices for us... but not the USSR.
So we entered the USSR by train from Warsaw, Poland and there was no money exchange on the train which meant we were unable to change our US$'s to buy anything to eat or drink... the trip takes 26 hours! Luckily and very kindly the people in the carriage beside us shared their sandwiches and tea from a Samovar... this is the first and only time I've ever drunk tea, it would have been to rude to refuse.
When we arrived in Leningrad on that first day we asked directions for a bank, and as we headed towards the said bank some young man sidled up to us and said very softly... 'Sell US Dollar? Sell Dollar?' so we did a deal there and then on the street getting 2 1/2 Ruble's for each 1US$, the going rate at the Banks was 1 Ruble for 1US$ but we never needed to go into a bank there was always a young man who gave us this much better rate on the streets. So for the first time in our lives we were Rich! Pity there wasn't anything to buy and the food was pretty awful.
From Leningrad we trained to Moscow, then across Siberia through Khabarovsk and Vladivostok then to the sea port of Nakhodka where we caught a boat to Japan.
As we were leaving the USSR there were signs everywhere saying we had to give back any Russian monies we still had on us, the USSR Officials at Customs also asked us for any monies we still had, they of course had no intention of giving us back our US$'s in this deal, anyway I only had one USSR Ruble left so taking a great risk to our safety... I hid the above Ruble on my person!
So I guess you could say that ... I borrowed this coin? :-)
# posted by Pennie @ May 28, 2015 
