160°
If you missed the fences and the swath of open land in the woods that mark the border, you can’t help but notice that you’ve finally left Russia because the human presence beyond the windows of the train is no longer disheveled. Finland shares a long history of tension with its huge and powerful neighbor to the east, but I wonder if having to share such a long border with Russia galls the Finns most of all because everything in their country is so orderly, while everything in Russia is such a mess. The immediate difference crossing between these two countries may well be more stark than between any two others on the planet. We are out of Russia and into suddenly more familiar and comforting territory, and James and I are suddenly giddy and joking about everything— about how the damn Finns have a ridiculous word like Hei for hello instead of the far simpler Russian Zdravstvuite, about how the Finns must long for a life without lawn mowers, a social contract, and more than one color of paint, about how surprised we are that the Finns and the European Union allow Russian trains to use their filthy open toilets within their territory but have perhaps granted a special temporary exemption to trains originating in SDCs—shit-dumping countries. . . . Russia recedes beyond the Gulf of Finland, beyond the lovely decompression chamber of Helsinki, beyond the soothingly smooth and comfortable trains and beds of Western Europe and all its polite people who almost always seem to speak English, and with every passing hour and kilometer we are at once more relaxed and more glad to be rid of the place and more and more sorry that we are not still there. Russia grabs hold of you tight, and if it often feels as if it’s choking the life out of you and making you want to flee, its suffocating embrace is also powerfully seductive. If it often seems to be going to extraordinary lengths to make itself infuriating and impenetrable—almost challenging you just to give up on it and turn your attention elsewhere—it also makes it impossible for you to turn away, and ultimately makes the whole exhausting and exhilarating encounter worth it.