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(Almost) back in the USSR

So Sven1 says, “Let’s drive to the Soviet border and watch the soldiers run around. I’ve done this many times, OK?” This is way back in the 1980’s (I’ve lost track of the exact date.) I am, at the time, a R&D Engineer for “QRS Paper2” back in the States.

I am perhaps 35 then, and really should know better. Sven: “Let’s do it, I’ve done it before, it really OK! Fun!” I agree to do what he wants, and we take off in our rented white panel van3 down the main road in the Keralia4 region of eastern Finland.

Soon we turn off onto a rough gravel side-road, which devolves into a dirt road and at last shrinks into two ruts posing as a road. The sides of the van knock against the birch and fir branches on either side of the path.

When we drive out of the woods, we are in a clearing with a slight downward slope. The Soviet border is a few tens of meters away. The Soviet soldiers quickly spot us, and several jeeps full of Red Army comrades brandishing machine guns head our way. “Sven” managed a high-speed K-turn in the clearing, and we headed back into the woods with some sense of urgency.

International incident averted, “Sven” says “Now, wasn’t that fun?”

  1. “Sven”, obviously not his real name, was a Mechanical Engineer employed by “XYZ Machinery Company” and a Swedish citizen. ↩︎

  2. “QRS Paper” also obviously not a real name, was long ago bought out by a competitor, and is now only a fading memory. I do get paid a pension via their succesor. ↩︎

  3. The van had been rented to transport some very large paper samples, products of a truly demented experiment by “QRS Paper” management. More on that later. ↩︎

  4. Keralia had been won and lost repeatedly by the Finns in bloody WWII battles. It was still very much a Cold War hot (or at least warm) spot. Half of Keralia is still in Russian control. ↩︎