We went to a place called 室韦 (Shiwei), situated in the Northeastern part of Inner Mongolia. Little wooden houses…

…right on the border of the bear:

I hollered “Да здравствует Ленин!” (“Hail Lenin!”) across the water, in order to befriend the Russians.

There was no answer.

I tried hailing Медве́дев (Medvedev), Merkel, and 胡锦涛 (Hu Jintao).

The horses kept ignoring me.

…

There seemed to be a way under the water leading right over to Russia, to what had supposedly been the other half of the tiny village a long time ago:

…borders have always fascinated me:

For example, this telephone pole belongs to China:

…so do these fields:

…the bird in this bird house in these birch trees is Chinese by residence:

The epitome of arbitrariness.

室韦 doesn’t seem to be bothered by such things though. The village quietly sleeps on the banks of the 额尔古纳 (Ergun) river, raising horses and waiting for tourists to come trickling in from all over the country:

The villagers, who are mostly Chinese of Russian descent, like to warm up in their living rooms, showing family pictures and enjoying high-proof beverages, while it is silent and cold outside.

Once I ventured into the night to take some pictures of the silence and the stars:

There was a dog barking in the distance.

I couldn’t tell if it was Russian or Chinese.

Soundtrack: Bata Illic – “Michaela”