to correspondent accounts with the West German and Italian bank Airobank (), Mosnarbank (), Deutschebank, the Italian banks Banco Commerciale Italiano and Credita Italiana, BNL, and the Australian based English-Scotch-Australian Bank From 1963 until 1972, Viktor Gerashchenko was at the MNB. He stated that the Central Bank of England was very strong and prevented MNB from obtaining loans from Moscow to supporting local companies associated with the local Communist Party or KGB, however, MNB and, to a lesser extent, the Paris-based Eurobank secured access to international and European markets to support various Socialist banks and the MNB conducted export and import settlements of the Soviet Union with Europe and loans to many small companies. He also said that both Gosbank and the department of planning and financial bodies of the Central Committee of the CPSU supervised MNB. He said that MNB owned residences for its employees at Highgate West Hill, not far from the Soviet trade mission at 32-33, Highgate West Hill, London N6 6NL, UK, which Leonid Krasin obtained after ending the trade embargo against Bolshevik Russia on 16 January 1920, and the grave of Karl Marx. From 1960 till 1969 assets have grown from £55.6 million to £331.9 million, and the paid-in capital have grown fourfold during this period and amounted to £5 million. There are a number of reasons for the surge in MNB’s activity in the 1960s. For one thing, it reflected a general upturn in the Soviet Union’s foreign economic relations: the volume of foreign trade in 1960, at over 10 billion rubles, was more than eight times higher than in 1946. Another factor was the re-organization in 1961 of the USSR Bank for Foreign Trade (Vneshtorgbank) — the second largest shareholder in MNB after Gosbank. In 1963, MNB worked with Americans to obtain a very large grain purchase. In 1963, the Beirut branch of the bank was opened. From 1969 to 1975, Tomas Alibegov was the deputy manager and then the branch manager Mosnarbank (Beirut) under Viktor Gerashchenko who was at this bank until 1971 when he was transferred to Moscow. According to Alibegov, the Beirut branch was second in size in Lebanon only to Arabbank and conducted loans among Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Libya, France, Lebanon, Egypt, North Yemen, Turkey, and Jordan. In 1973, the branch moved into a building next to the Bank of Lebanon and was sold to Saudi Arabia after