The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage

by Erika Fatland, Kari Dickson (Translator)

Overview

The acclaimed author of Sovietistan travels along the seemingly endless Russian border and reveals the deep and pervasive influence it has had across half the globe.

Imperial, communist or autocratic, Russia has been—and remains—a towering and intimidating neighbor. Whether it is North Korea in the Far East through the former Soviet republics in Asia and the Caucasus, or countries on the Caspian Ocean and the Black Sea. What would it be like to traverse the entirety of the Russian periphery to examine its effects on those closest to her?

An astute and brilliant combination of lyric travel writing and modern history, The Border is a book about Russia without its author ever entering Russia itself. Fatland gets to the heart of what it has meant to be the neighbor of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. As we follow Fatland on her journey, we experience the colorful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations along with their cultures, their people, their landscapes.

Sharply observed and wholly absorbing, The Border is a surprising new way to understand a broad part our world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643136561
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	02/02/2021
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Erika Fatland studied Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her 2011 book, The Village of Angels, was an in situ report on the Beslan terror attacks of 2004 and she is also the author of The Year Without Summer, describing the harrowing year that followed the massacre on Utøya in 2011. For Sovietistan (2019) she was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford/Lonely Planet Debut Travel Writer of the Year, and The Border (2020) was shortlisted for the Stanfords Dolman Travel Book of the Year 2020. Both are available from Pegasus Books. She speaks eight languages and lives in Oslo with her husband.

Kari Dickson is a translator from Norwegian of crime fiction, literary fiction, children's books, theatre, and non-fiction, including Erika Fatland's Sovietistan and The Border. She is also an occasional tutor in Norwegian language, literature, and translation at the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

The Ocean

Map of Russia's Coast 2

Arctic Summer 5

Asia

Map of Russia's Border with Asia 46

Map of North and South Korea 48

The Art of Bowing without Bowing Down 49

Great Leaders 68

A Sensitive Matter 79

Capitalism Lite 93

The Rusty Friendship Bridge 103

203 Hill 108

The Orient's Moscow 120

Restaurant Putin 131

Disney on the Border 139

A Living God, a Mad Baron and a Red Hero 142

World Rulers 151

In the Ruins of a Thousand Treasures 164

Hermits of the Taiga 171

Ninja Miners 184

No Foreigners 193

Back in the U.S.S.R. 210

In the Realm of the Bears 218

City of the Future 230

Bowling in Baikonur 241

The Caucasus

Map of Russia's Border with the Caucasus 254

To Wonderland 257

Mr President and Mrs Vice-President 271

The Black Mountain Garden 280

Singalong on the Border 293

No-Man 307

Stalin's Paradise 320

Europe

Map of Russia's Border with Europe 336

The Inhospitable Sea 339

Quality Swedish Tea 350

The Wart on Russia's Nose 357

The Youngest Breakaway Republic in the World 374

Express Train to Kiev 389

Group Tour to Chernobyl 405

Borderland 416

The People who Disappeared 425

A Trip to the Dacha that Changed the World 443

Lines in the Sand 456

The Master Race 470

Unrest 480

A Lesson in Liberation 487

The Monument War 495

The Outpost 505

The Field Marshal 512

A Lesson in the Value of Maintenance 532

Lapland 543

The Border 551

Map of Finnmark 553

Acknowledgments 585

Brief Outline of the History of Russia 589

Notes 596

Epigraphs 598

Bibliography 599

Index 603

Editorial Reviews

01/04/2021

In this ambitious travelogue, journalist Fatland (Sovietistan) documents her multiyear odyssey along Russia’s 60,932-kilometer-long border with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. Noting that Norway is “the only one of its 14 neighbors that has not been invaded or at war with Russia in the past five hundred years,” Fatland ask “what does it mean to have the world’s largest country as your neighbor?” She answers with colorful accounts of her experiences and observations cruising the ice-crusted Northeast Passage (which makes up two-thirds of Russia’s boundary), riding horseback in Mongolia (“The Siberian wind... was unrelenting and cut through all the layers of wool until I could no longer feel my legs”), and kayaking the waterways between Norway and Russia (“The river gurgled; every now and then a big fat salmon would leap up”). She also provides a dense history of each place she visits, including sites of recent conflict, such as Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and weaves her travel narrative with stories of people whose lives have been affected by Russia’s geopolitical ambitions. Armchair adventurers and Russian history buffs are in for a treat. Photos. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Vivid. In addition to taking the reader on a fascinating journey, Sovietistan highlights what an ethnic mosaic the region is. What is so refreshing about Fatland is her predilection for deliberate moments of bathos and deconstruction. An opportunity for sustained reflection on the region.

PopMatters

A hauntingly lyrical meditation to the contingencies of history. Ms. Fatland’s greatest gift, is listening...allowing the people she meets to reveal themselves in meticulously rendered dramatic monologues, capturing their tics, eccentricities, and detailed personal histories. Russianness gives way to humanity—but not a simplistic one.

The Wall Street Journal

In this absorbing travelogue, Erika Fatland picks her way through five former Soviet satellite states, witnessing the social, economic, and environmental damage they’ve sustained.”

Christian Science Monitor

04/02/2021

Fatland (Sovietstan) chronicles her travels through the nations that surround Russia and investigates the impact of the massive shadow cast over these smaller counties by Russia (and the Soviet Union before it). She writes knowledgably about the countries she passes through, and talks to locals about how their nations's history has been shaped by Russia. Though broken into short chapters about specific locales, this book is difficult to read cover to cover; it is more effectively read in short bursts, one chapter per sitting. Fatland assumes that readers know the history of many of these countries, which can make it difficult to comprehend the snippets of background she offers. The result is that some of the chapters, like the ones about Chernobyl and North Korea, read quickly, while many of the other chapters can be difficult to wade through and place in world history. VERDICT Will appeal to fans of travel books who enjoy additional background and history of destinations; particularly good for readers familiar with the areas around Russia.—Stacy Shaw, Denver

Library Journal

Fatland’s anecdotes are rich and revelatory... Sovietistan blends complex history with Fatland’s own clear-eyed reporting, the devastation of the Soviet era always in the background (and sometimes the foreground). With the Russian Bear once again on the move, she plumbs the high cost of dictatorships and the human yearning for self-determination. Sovietistan is a perspicacious, vital book about little-known places and real lives; it deserves a wide readership.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune

Praise for Erika Fatland's Sovietistan

“An introduction to a deeply misunderstood part of the world...the complexity and beauty of this region are best represented when she goes back in time. Fatland has a level of access most outsiders would never have.

The New York Times Book Review - Gina Rae La Cerva