Letter from Uzhgorod:There is something exciting about borders. Not the sort we have in western Europe, but those real ones with a red-and-white pole and inscrutable border guards that exist because of political and military decisions. In eastern Europe, while borders appear to be permanent, they are, historically, as moveable as shifting sands
The Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod is the ultimate border town; lively, bustling and slightly edgy. It is the most westerly part of Ukraine, sticking into central Europe, about two kilometres from Slovakia and a short drive from Hungary, Romania, and Poland and almost cut off from the rest of Ukraine by the Carpathian Mountains.
As if to emphasise its isolated location, even the flight from Kiev is undertaken in an Antonov prop-driven aircraft that battles through the snow, just as it has probably been doing since the 1960s.
Locals will gleefully point to where smugglers pass through the border into the EU, bringing goods both ways and people one way, into the EU. As the same locals tell you, the people of Uzhgorod are either customs officers or smugglers "or both".
One local told of smugglers taking groups of people trying to enter the EU into the forests and leaving them at pre-erected fake signs saying Slovakia or Romania, as the unfortunates wandered around, thinking they were already in the EU.
Generally, Ukrainians hate it when Westerners ask if the word Ukraine is a corruption of "borderland". Such an interpretation implies that Ukraine should not exist, that it is really just a space between Russia and possibly Poland. But in Zakarpattia province, being a borderland is an inescapable, everyday fact, not just because of the physical presence of borders but due to the people and even Uzhgorod's architecture.
Think of the writings of Joseph Roth and his novel The Radetzky March, set in the far east of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Think of the dusty border towns, far away from the centre in Vienna or Budapest and that is Uzhgorod. One local proudly said that Uzhgorod had changed hands 76 times over the past 400 years.
Whatever about that claim, over the past 90 years Uzhgorod has been the most easterly part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, then it became part of interwar Czechoslovakia, then Hungary again and for a period of a few months it was independent Ukraine-Transcarpathia, before becoming part of the USSR and now Ukraine.
Even the name of the city can be spelt in different ways. Uzhgorod, Uzhhorod or formerly Ungvar, Ungwar or Ungvir.
Like so many cities of the former Soviet Union, its suburbs are crumbling and rusty, with Brezhnev-era apartment buildings covered in water stains, with rusty window frames and balconies that are used to give the small Soviet flats an extra room. The wonderful art deco and secessionist styles from the city's period of being part of Czechoslovakia are in the direction of the city centre.
The centre contains the architecture of the Austro-Hungarian empire, with its administration buildings and houses surrounding little garden courtyards and the two cathedrals, the Greek Catholic and the Orthodox, as well as the wonderfully restored synagogue, now a concert hall.
Up on the hill overlooking the city, is the 15th-century castle, evidence of the contested nature of this region and the battles between Hungarians and Ruthenians. Nowadays, the city is very pleasant, if somewhat strange.
It does not feel part of Ukraine. You hear people talking in Romanian, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian and its feel is more central European than Ukrainian. The Cyrillic letters on the shop fronts look strangely out of place, although a Ukrainian friend said she found the use of Roman letters odd, given it is part of Ukraine. On the border, you can chose your currency and your alphabet.
As you climb the hills behind the city, the newer suburbs, with the newer houses, are visible. Looking like large ski chalets behind big walls, they are the product of the wealth that living so close to a border can bring. The border is significant as it offers so many entry points to the EU. It is also a constant reminder to western Ukrainians of what they have not got, membership of the EU.
Local people, living within 50km (31 miles) of the border, can cross freely, evidence of its arbitrary nature. While most western Ukrainians want much closer relations with western Europe, including EU membership, one wonders if the people of Uzhgorod feel the same. The border defines them. Their mixed ethnicity, the contested nature of the place and, of course, the economic benefits of smuggling, might make EU membership something of a disadvantage.
One native of Transcarpathian Ukraine became infamous in the West.
Jan Ludvik Hoch, known as Abraham to his family, was born near Uzhgorod in a village then called Slatinske Doly, now Velyky Bychkiv in what was then Czechoslovakia. Part of the area's large Jewish population at the time, his father was a woodcutter and cattle dealer and, like everyone else, probably a smuggler.
Hoch learnt Hebrew in the village yeshiva, but when the second World War broke out, he left his home, near the Romanian border. He shaved off his Hasidic locks and took a train to Budapest. Hoch joined the Czech army and fought throughout Europe and the Middle East. He finally ended up in Britain and the young Orthodox Jew from the borderland of Carpathia reinvented himself again, and became Robert Maxwell.