It’s recorded in the history books as one of those fateful moments — in the spring of 1917 Lenin traveled by train from Zurich to Russia, where he would soon lead the Bolshevik Revolution.
Now it appears that he may have left something behind.
The most recent list of holders of dormant Swiss bank accounts opened prior to 1945 lists a Wladimir Ulyanov — the German spelling of Lenin’s given name – – with a hometown of Zurich.
“We do not know whether this is the real Lenin,” said a spokesman for the Swiss Bankers Association, which published the list last month.
In any event, Ulyanov — or his heirs — are not going to become millionaires – – the account has less than $71 in it.
The recent list of 14,000 account holders, which included 3,700 non-Swiss citizens, was the second one published by the Swiss Bankers Association this year.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
