After years of closure, the wooden barrier at the Iranian-Russian border was lifted last week, and a Russian train rolled across. A Russian bank official stepped out onto Iranian soil, greeted Iranian officials in Russian and presented his credentials.
Inside his train lay 100 packing cases that symbolized Russia's new "policy of leniency" towards Iran: they contained eleven tons of gold ingots worth $12 million.
The gold had long belonged to Iran—it was the agreed Russian payment for Iranian services during World War II, when the Red army occupied the northern half of the country and the British the 29 southern. The British paid for what they used or took; the Russians had not. Russia's belated paying-up is presumably intended to lure Iran away from the northern-tier alliance of Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan. But most Iranians seemed to regard the transaction as merely getting back what belonged to them all along.