The Russian Trains Leaving Berlin for Moscow

An American businessman in Central Europe during the 1990's would have never trusted his ex-pat salary to the banks of the post-Soviet Bloc era countries. In fact, most were having their money deposited in so-called offshore accounts in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Cypress, the Cayman Islands and other tax havens that were, at the time, untouchable by the IRS and other tax authorities. The idea of "going offshore" and trusting money to an island country or a place where I didn't speak the language scared me enough that I decided to open a Deutsche Bank account in Berlin and deal with money affairs in a place that was more familiar to me. I made monthly trips to Berlin from Krakow and Warsaw to deal with banking affairs and shop for goods unavailable in Poland during both my FEDEX days and while working for RR Donnelley. Such trips were never without incident and provide an almost surrealistic vision of what the fall of Communism created in Central Europe.