Monday, Nov 21, 2005
In Corner of Ukraine, a Strip of Iron Curtain Still Awaits its Fall
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It's been 60 years since Petor Lizak has been able to wander down the single street of his tiny village to attend the church where his family had prayed for decades, or visit many of his cousins who live nearby.
 Petor Lizak stands at the border
© AFP/File Genya SavilovLizak, a jolly man with a thatch of white hair, was just five years old when an invisible hand sliced his village of Szelmenc in half in August 1945, amid a redrawing of Europe's borders following World War II.
Within days barbed wire severed Lizak from his church, much family and many friends -- along with two-thirds of the villagers he now lived in Velke Slemence in Czechoslovakia, while the rest were residents of Solontsi in the Soviet Union.
The family across the street from Lizak's house bore the full brunt of the Iron Curtain reality -- the new border ran straight through its house.
"They left quietly in the night so no one would see them" and settled with relatives on the western side of the new border, Lizak said. Their house was levelled.
 Ukrainian border guards in Maly Selmentsi
© AFP/File Genya SavilovMore than six decades later, the residents of the two villages -- now nationals of Slovakia's Velke Slemence and Ukraine's Maly Selmentsi -- are eagerly awaiting the fall of one of the last vestiges of the Iron Curtain.
After years of talks between Bratislava and Kiev, a brand-new checkpoint has been erected on the village's only street this summer and the opening is a tantalizing bureaucratic nod away.
"Everyone is waiting for the opening," said Iosif Veresh, Lizak's 41-year-old nephew who lives on the Ukrainian side.
When the border first sliced the village, Lizak's house ended up just west of the border -- a pump dumped rainwater from the roof into the 15-meter no man's land that snaked in both directions across the plains.
As speaking with people on the other side was not allowed, the ethnic Hungarian villagers resorted to creative ways for communication -- as the border guards were usually either Russian, Ukrainian or Slovak speakers, the villagers would couch announcements of births, weddings or funerals in Hungarian folk songs that they would sing along the fence.
The Soviet Union fell in 1991, Czechoslovakia split in 1993, the villagers received passports of newly-formed Slovakia and Ukraine, the barbed wire was replaced with simple wire fencing, but the border remained.
 Border guard in the middle of Maly Selmentsi
© AFP/File Genya SavilovWhile communication has become a bit easier -- one can stand on either side of the divide and yell to each other -- visiting his childhood church or relatives is still an all-day affair for Lizak: the nearest border crossing is 50 kilometers (30 miles) away.
With 800 residents on both sides, the issue of opening a border crossing in the village did not top the agenda in either capital, and the prospect seemed as far removed as ever until this summer, when officials from the Council of Europe visited Ukraine and met with its new pro-Western president.
"He was unaware of the situation... and then we presented him the case and right away on the spot, he wrote the instructions to the government that he wants to see the situation resolved," Matyas Eorsi, a Council of Europe rapporteur on the issue, told AFP.
The effect was magical -- within two months, a spanking-new border crossing was erected on the Ukrainian side, replete with neat houses for the border guards, fresh signs on customs procedures, and state-of-the art equipment to detect passport counterfeits.
"I think that it's the fastest that a border crossing has ever been built," joked one Ukrainian border guard official.
 Border crossing in Maly Selmentsi
© AFP/File Genya SavilovThe road on the Ukrainian side was paved, a sidewalk was laid down, and housing prices skyrocketed in anticipation of the expected opening in mid-September.
But the dismissal of the Ukrainian government at the beginning of the month stalled the process once more.
"The two governments... since then have only been blaming each other for the delay and I must say I do not understand the reason," Eorsi said. "It is such a small but wonderful gesture for a few hundred people... on both sides of the border who have expected this for decades."
Although eager for the big day and aware that only the Slovak villagers will be able to cross the border without a visa -- Ukraine has lifted visa requirements for European Union nationals, but Ukrainians still need one to enter the EU -- the villagers are philosophic about the delay.
"We've waited so long, what's a few more months?" said Lena Mitro, 50, who has numerous in-laws on the Slovak side. "It would be nice to see the relatives from the other side up close. Right now, we just see them at a distance."
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