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[Beyond1984]

I sold my dacha in Florida around 2003, and made the decision to wire the proceeds into a Nadra dollar account. At that time the Bank of America was paying about .5% interest ; Nadra was paying 8%. After three years of work in Kiev I left for a better job in Riga in August of 2005. I left my money in Nadra.

During the summer of 2006 I decided to return to Ukraine for a Black Sea holiday. I flew into Simferopol in July and ended up at a Nadra branch in Feodosia. I tried to get a few hundred dollars in cash and have the rest wired to Hansabank in Riga. They told me I had to go to the Artema branch in Kiev where I had opened the account.

I went, filled out the paperwork to have my account closed and the funds wired to Riga, and returned to Riga. I had to take the train back to Simferopol - I wasn't able to change my flight.

The money was never wired. I am in China now and had to hire a Ukrainian lawyer to get my money transferred to the Bank of China. This involved drawing up a Power of Attorney in Chinese, getting it translated into Russian and Ukrainian, getting it notarized, getting it apostilled, getting it approved by the Ukrainian consulate in Beijing, and sending scans of every Ukrainian entry and exit stamp in my passport. It has taken almost three years to pry MY money from the greedy clutches of Nadra.

My lawyer tells me that the Ukrainian banks and the hrivna are weaker than Iceland's devastated currency.

For those lucky enough to be living in Ukraine and saving money, I recommend a secret numbered Swiss account and wiring money out through Western Union.

A friend of mine had $3,000 confiscated at Borispol prior to boarding a flight, flew back to Ukraine and went to court to try to get it back, and lost.

The lawyer cost me $500, the fruitless Latvia - Ukraine run over a thousand, the fees for translation, notary, apostille, DHL and so forth another $400.

Caveat emptor! If the high interest rates at Ukraine banks are looking good, consider the possibility that you won't get a kopek back. This has caused me years of consternation. Better the safe .5%

-HDT

"How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
-Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience," 1849