Tale of a Border Town
Who determines the borderline within a city?
There seem to be a huge disparity between the border city of Volka and Volga; The stench of old soviet communism is still looming over one of them, while capitalist icons - self automated gas station and a mini-sized hypermart - are already sprouting along the border of its neighbour. It feels surreal in the Latvian side; we were always waiting for something to happen, maybe there is some event going on, but nothing ever happens. It seems as if we were trapped in some computer game, where the residents - being the AIs - programmed to move around with no particular aims or interest. It feels real on the Estonian side, being comfortable in the consummerism setting, being able to shop in a proper supermarket, watching people travelling to an actual destination. It no longer feels like being part of a computer game.
That's the border, it separates fiction from reality. But what is fictional and what is real? Is Estonia more real than Latvia? But is the realness in Estonia made up? If it is made up, how can we say that it's more real? Perhaps, we were conditioned to think that the fiction is the reality, or maybe it has always been the reality.
But that's just the border.
