The Border: A Journey Around Russia, Fatland - B-

                  Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, And The Northwest Passage

       The author circumnavigated Russia with one question in mind: "what does it mean to have the world's largest country as your neighbor?" There is no one or simple answer. The dissolution of the USSR led to the creation of 14 new states.    

      To the north is the Arctic Ocean with a coastline extending from Murmansk, abutting Norway, to the Bering Straits, a few miles from Alaska. It is cold, forbidding and filled with the detritus of the Soviet era. Climate change is affecting the Arctic more than anywhere else, and the historic islands in the Arctic Sea, which saw centuries of explorers are being inundated by the rise of the sea. At 19 kilometers, the N. Korean border is the shortest. The country is, of course, the most closed, corrupt and poorest place in the world, one that barely survives thanks to an illegal black market economy, and trade with Russia and China.  The deluded populace believes the US started the war in 1950, that we are on the verge of attacking, that the North and South will unify under the leadership of the North, and that it is the best place on earth to live. In 1858 and 1860, Russia forced a severely unequal border treaty with China, taking vast amounts of Chinese land and allowing the Russians to build Vladivostok, which means 'Ruler of the East'.  The borderlands are China's most northern territories, and abut Russia's Far Eastern District, which is actually east of Siberia. The District is one-third of Russia's land and has 6m people, while the bordering smaller Chinese region has 40m. Mongolia has been a battleground between its two massive neighbors for centuries and had been a Buddhist theocracy until Stalin's 1930's suppression. The country was not part of the USSR, but was a satellite state that Moscow completely controlled. Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world and was home to the USSR's nuclear testing programs. Its border with Russia is just over 4,000 miles. A fifth of the population are Russian and live in the north near the border, thus unnerving the government, which is anxious about maintaining positive relations with the Russians. In Azerbaijan, it is not anxiety but dislike of the Russians and their history of conquest and oppression in the Caucasus. Ethnic tensions, the essence of the history of the region, permeate life in Azerbaijan because of its breakaway region, Nagorno-Karabakh, which is ethnically Armenian. Similarly, in neighboring Georgia, the animosity is over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two breakaway republics recognized as independent by Russia. It seems that the less history and contact with the Russia of the Tsars, the USSR and Putin's Russia, the better off one is. The only Asian neighbor that is a successful country is China and it has never been subservient to or reliant on Russia. As for the rest, the only calculus is who is worse off.

        In Ukraine, all Russian speakers believe the Rose Revolution was a US plot, and between the annexation of the Crimea and the war in the Donbas, tensions are higher at this border than anywhere else in Europe. And sadly for this accursed country, Chernobyl is now a major tourist attraction. In Belarus, the Soviet Union is alive and well. Statues of Lenin are still standing and the KGB hasn't bothered to change its name. Its border with Russia is completely open. In Lithuania, only 5% of the population is Russian. It was the first country to declare its independence in 1991. Poland's long history with Russia is a lengthy litany of hatred that lies just below the surface today.      It should be noted that both Lithuania and Poland only border Kaliningrad, not mother Russia itself. Latvia was heavily Russian when it was part of the USSR and consequently, today it is one-quarter Russian. It suffered at the hands of both sides in WWII, but the most difficult memory is the thousands who were sent to Siberia and the Gulag. Estonia too is heavily Russian. Its border with Russia is still not settled by treaty. The two countries have also been arguing about monuments, particularly one memorializing a soldier of the Red Army. Finland was Swedish for seven centuries and was conquered by Russia in 1809. It was a stand alone Grand Duchy when it declared its independence in 1917. They fought and lost to the USSR in the 1940 Winter War, and lost twelve percent of their territory. They were affiliated with the USSR during the Cold War, but not occupied like the countries behind the Iron Curtain. Today, the borders of Russia, Finland and Norway meet at a cairn above the Arctic Circle. From there, it is 117 miles north along the Norwegian border to the Arctic Sea. This border is NATO's oldest with Russia, dating to 1949. As in Asia, the country with the least interaction with Russia, Norway, is the most successful. Finland had extensive contacts, but was never occupied and it's a close second. All the rest continue to struggle with the latest iteration of evil. 

            Erika Fatland is a Norwegian journalist in her thirties with a real case of wanderlust. She traveled alone over 12,000 miles 'around' Russia. She concludes, "It is not just its neighbours that are disparate; Russia contains within its border myriad disparate histories, terrains and ethnic groups."  The country lost half of its population when the USSR dissolved. Her guess is that further border disintegration is in its future. As for me, I have a fondness for offbeat travelogues and, that said, still skimmed quite a bit.