Borders that make people cross
You have to have a passport if you want to go to another country, don't you? At least, that's what Vitali Vitaliev thought. But if it's Sunday, it seems you needn't worry...
It sounds stupid to get lost in Liechtenstein, a country in the Alps so tiny that when you ask a local for directions to the post office, he'll probably say something like, "Go to to the next corner, turn right into Switzerland, cross the road back into Liechtenstein, and you'll see the post office at the next traffic lights, just opposite the Austrian border"But after severeal hours of hiking through the Alps I did indeed get lost. So it was with some relief that I found myself walking down into a valley towards a country inn. The place was full of people, all with huge Wiener schnitzels on their plates, the area of some of them almost to that of Liechtenstein. Suddenly i froze: you find Wiener schnitzels of this size in only one country - Austria. I was now in Austria illegaly!
Terrible visions from my Soviet past rushed at me. Words like "extradition," "deportation," and "detention" started echoing in my brain. With alarm I remembered that my brand-new Australian passport was in my hotel in Liechtenstein. And it didn't have an Austrian visa anyway!
Like any former Soviet citizen, I have a deeply rooted fear of borders. Even now, with a western passport in my pocket, I find it hard to get used to immigration officials at western airports waving through. I am scared that they might forget to put some important stamp in my passport, and this will mean trouble. I linger in front of an immigration officer with a sycophantic look on my face. I know I musn't look too confident. Old habits die hard. Old fears die even harder.
I had to do domething - quickly. I rushed out of the Austrian inn and went back down the road towards the Liechtenstein border. In the distance I could see the tiny hut of a border post and I prepared myself for a painful showdown with the frontier guards
