Dollars and rubles

The ATM screen at my bank (Wachovia, soon to be Wells Fargo) informed me the other day that it now is capable of doing business in Russian, and even showed some sample Cyrillic lettering to prove it. Who knew there was a demand for Russian-language banking services in southern Chester County?
I visited Wells Fargo's website to find out about this new service and found a really interesting little essay by historian Ileana Bonilla about the bank's links with Russia, dating back to the early 20th century. For instance:
"In 1912, Wells Fargo made sending money to Russia easier by introducing Foreign Postal Remittances. D.G. Mellor, the Foreign Traffic Manager at the time, stated that in offering this service Russians were one of the groups at whom they were aiming "the great field of [their] efforts." These remittances would be for "people who have money to send to their home villages in Europe, where there are usually no banks and where our foreign money orders, printed in English, cannot be read or understood."
Through correspondent banks, Wells Fargo would arrange for cash to be mailed directly to the recipient. The new service allowed Russians in the U.S. the convenience of sending money back home easily, knowing it would arrive right at the door of their relative or friend."