the savings bank

I used to have an account at the Savings Bank of Russia, actually I probably still do have that account, I never closed it, it’s just that I haven’t used it in quite a while. For some reason I thought about how it used to be with that account. It was an old style bank account, no plastic card no nothing. I was given a small account book and whenever I wanted to draw money from it I had to go to a Savings Bank office, give my passport and my account book to the teller and tell them how much money I needed, they would enter the transaction on the computer, then given me back my passport and pass my account book to the cashier, I would then be given a plastic or wooden token which I had to take to the cash booth, I would go in there and give the token to the cashier and the cashier would then give me the cash and my account book.

It was a long process. It used to take me between fifteen minutes and one hour to get cash from my account.

These days I carry a plastic card and I either pay for stuff using the card or when I need cash I find an ATM and withdraw as much cash as a need within minutes.

Somehow today I caught myself feeling nostalgic about that old Savings Bank account of mine. Probably because when I first opened it back in 2005 I was a happier person than I am now.