Restricted border areas

Sometimes, really odd things happen. On Monday, we had an interesting discussion at our Transport Travellers Club webforum. One poster reported that he travelled from St. Pete to Sortavala, and they have a border control checkpoint in the village of Hiitola (Republic of Karelia), somewhere at the NW of Ladoga Lake. The checkpoint was there for ages, but usually uninhabited. Last months the border officers were showing up from time to time, but they just checked the ID and waved off. This time, the lady told the poster that in two weeks they are going to start checking border passes - something previously unheard of in this area. Another poster recollected that he has, indeed, seen some vague document on Leningrad region. The third one found more documents. Finally, we got about 30 of them and started reading. And then...

To understand what then you need some background on border restricted areas (пограничная зона in Russian). In Soviet times, large chunks of land and sea next to the border were off limits. Officially, they needed to protect the border - to catch spies and those Soviet citizens who wanted to leave illegally. Even though some parts definitely could not serve that purpose, for instance, almost all the shore of the Arctic ocean, the system was very efficient - indeed, it was really difficult to leave. In 1991, most of these areas were open to public. But in 2003, after the Beslan school terrorist attack in North Ossetia, some officals started to spell out that better border control is needed to catch terrorists (even though the Beslan group never crossed any border - they were all Russian citizens trained in Chechnya).

Good, now we had an opportunity to see the results. These 30 smth directives issued by the Federal Security Agency (FSB) cover all regions adjacent to the border, land or sea. Even the areas traditionally considered as deep countryside (Bryansk, Samara, or Novosibirsk) are included. For each region, the areas are specified that are declared to be border restricted.

Some examples. In Leningrad region, the town of Ivangorod, famous for its fortress, will be off-limits. In Karelia, Hiitola is on the only road from St. Pete to Sortavala along the west bank of Ladoga Lake - the road will be closed. Also, Hiitola is a Mecca for St. Pete's rock climbers - they will have to look for some other places. Many rafting rivers start in West Karelia, that is now restricted. Famous Pskov-Pechory monastery, a place of pilgrimage, is now too close to the border. Vladivostok is not restricted, but all recreation areas around it are on the coast - and the seashore in Primorsky territory, with the exception of the cities of Vladivostok and Nakhodka, is off-limits. In Sakhalin Island, it is even easier: everything closer than 5 km to the shore is border restricted area. In Chukchi District, only a strip along the coast is restricted, but it includes the only two airports - Anadyr' and Pevek - that are connected with the rest of Russia by regular passenger flights. In Yamal-Nenets District, about 1/3 of the area, including the cities of Salekhard, Nadym, and Novy Urengoy, is closed off - apparently, to facilitate catching spies, who crossed from Canada over the Arctic Ocean are are now hiding in tundra. And the examples of stupidity are many more.

The directives do not specify what will be the regime of access of ordinary citizens to the border area. If we recollect the soviet period experience, one will have to submit a motivated request (business, visit of relatives, or may be an organized tour) and to get a pass. If it going to be like this, ironically, for an average citizen of St. Petersburg it may become easier to cross the border to Finland's Karelia than get a pass to Russia'a one.

But the most interesting thing is that nobody seems to know about these directives - and nobody seems to want to know. Everybody thinks it does not concern him/her. Right now there is a public outcry in Vladivostok, where people are being fined for crossing into the newly established areas without a pass, but Primorsky Territory is too far from Moscow to be noticed. St. Pete is the next in line, and we will have to see whether at least this example can have an impact on the sleeping country. If not, prepare to get a pass to visit your own bathroom in a couple of years.

For Russian readers, here is a link to the discussion I mentioned,
http://www.express-3.ru/webboard/message.php?id=148773&tree=on&shbd=&Offset=0