Geez, I almost forgot the best Commie Czechoslovakia story from our trip there in 1988. We were heading up into the rolling hills where the spa towns were located when our tour bus got a flat tire. While we were waiting for the bus to get fixed, a small group of us took a hike up a hillside to see what was at the top.
Well, were we in for a surprise. We got up there and looked down upon what appeared to be a military installation of some sort out in the middle of nowhere, with barbed wire around it and guard dogs at the perimeter. At which point we skedaddled right back down the hillside as quickly as possible. I’ve always wondered what exactly that was that we happened upon. Will never know, but it really creeped us all out at the time.
I saw a movie about how the Czechs would operate a fake border crossing about a mile from the real border, and that they would trick people into thinking they had crossed the border, and fake American Soldiers would ask them for their contacts, before executing them on the spot.