KALININGRAD, RUSSIA — You only have to glance about this crumbling city to see that Kaliningrad has little in common with the European Union. With its potholed streets, statues of Lenin and openly swaggering gangsters, this city — once known as Konigsburg, the capital of East Prussia — nails the stereotype of post-Soviet Russia well.
But this is Russia with a difference. Now that neighbours Poland and Lithuania are new members of the EU, along with eight other countries, Kaliningrad is sealed off from the rest of the country, an isolated chunk of Russia surrounded by, but not included in, the new, enlarged Europe.
As of today, if Kaliningraders want to travel to Poland or Lithuania they have to get a visa, which they didn't need before.
Even if residents only want to travel to other parts of Russia, and can't afford to fly, they have to apply 28 hours in advance to the Lithuanian embassy for permission to board a specially sealed train that crosses Lithuanian territory on the way to Moscow.
For these people who live hundreds of kilometres closer to Warsaw, Vilnius and even Berlin than they do to Moscow or St. Petersburg, a feeling of isolation is rapidly descending.
It's being dubbed the "Paper Curtain," the new 2,400-kilometre bureaucratic wall that divides Europeans just as the Iron Curtain once did.
Those countries joining the EU todayÖ do so with the expectation that aid and investment will flow in, a rising tide that has already begun lifting their ships. Those on the outside are left to grumble and complain.
Commerce between the two sides will be hit hard, since few of the trucks that account for most of Kaliningrad's trade with its neighbours meet EU environmental standards.
"Nobody knows what will happen after May 1," said 36-year-old Victor Agakin, sitting in his fume-belching Volkswagon van as he waited to cross the Polish border at Bagrationovsk, 45 kilometres west of Kaliningrad city. He drives back and forth every two days, buying potatoes in Poland to sell on the Russian side. "All I know is that it will be more costly for us."
Mr. Agakin is representative of the more benign side of the millions of dollars in daily cross-border activity.
Poland and Lithuania have been tightening their borders, introducing dozens more checkpoints, fearful that Kaliningrad will be used as a back door by drug traffickers and people-smugglers looking for an easy way into Europe.
This graf could go for trim Down a small hill from where Mr. Agakin waited to cross the border, a cluster of smugglers leaning on a blue Opel sedan said their world had already been altered even before the EU expansion became official. "The Polish people at the border, they've changed. They won't accept money any more [for hassle-free passage]," said one man, who gave his name only as Yuri and said he smuggles vodka and cigarettes into Poland several times a week. "We can still cross, but it's not like before."
Russia estimates that the EU's move east will cost it $150-million every year in lost market access, as historic trading partners such as Poland and the Baltic states reorient themselves westward and introduce tougher standards and customs rules.
Ukraine has similar worries as Slovakia and Hungary also tighten their borders, but it is Kaliningrad and its 950,000 residents that will feel the pinch most immediately.
Russia annexed the region from Germany at the end of the Second World War, deported the entire German population, and renamed it after Mikhail Kalinin, a lieutenant of Lenin who never set foot in the city. With its Baltic Sea fleet still headquartered here — it is Russia's only year-round, deep-sea port on the Baltic — Russia held on to Kaliningrad even through the dissolution of the Soviet Union because it was considered too strategically important to lose.
Now, many think the enclave is facing two starkly different futures. If Moscow loosens its grip and allows the region to reach a separate customs and immigration pact with the EU, the region could flourish as an economic bridge between Europe and Russia. But if things don't change, there are deep fears that trade will simply bypass Kaliningrad, despite its duty-free status within Russia, and the region will slide even farther behind its neighbours.
"I'd like to see Kaliningrad become Hong Kong, with all trade going through us," said Alexander Ptashko, head of a company that helps Polish and Lithuanian firms navigate Russia's Byzantine investment rules. "But if we do not get a separate political deal, we will be a military base and that's all. No one will work or live here."
Already, Kaliningrad is in dire economic straits. Though it has seen significant economic growth on paper over the past two years, wages remain a fraction of what they are in Poland, and 25 per cent of the population still lives below the poverty line.
The economy is largely controlled by organized crime, and the exclave has one of the highest AIDS rates of any region in Europe.
Some people are contemplating radical solutions. Sitting in the office of the outlawed Baltic Republican Party, lawyer Sergei Pasko offers a vision of Kaliningrad that sees it with control of its own borders and economic policy, and sitting as an associate member of the EU, with or without Russia by its side.
Under Mr. Pasko's vision, Kaliningrad would nominally remain part of Russia, but defer to Moscow only on issues such as foreign policy and defence.
All other areas — criminal law, taxation, customs, environmental policy — would be under local control and brought into accordance with EU standards. He says decades of separation from "big Russia" means Kaliningraders are at least as European in outlook as they are Russian.
"We are not just another part of the body, we are separate," he said. "Most of our citizens feel different from other Russians. ..... We have to fight for our freedom from the Kremlin."
Mr. Pasko's ideas have strong appeal for young Kaliningraders. A recent survey found that 70 per cent of those under 21 had never been to other parts of Russia, though most had visited countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
Relaxing in the shade of a Red Army tank that stands on a city square as a monument to the Soviet troops that drove the Germans out of Konigsburg, 17-year-old Artyom Beluosov said he is proud of his Russian heritage but badly wants the opportunities afforded to people growing up in the EU. He has travelled widely in Europe, and knows how far behind his city lags.
"I think Kaliningrad should be part of Germany again," he said, uttering words that would likely make his parents and grandparents furious. "Right now we're part of Russia, but we're separated from the rest. It's a big problem."
