Center of Europe
A few miles outside the town of Rakhiv in Zakarpattia on the highway to Uzhhorod, a sign marking the geographical center of Europe commands the travelers’ attention. It lies halfway between the Ural ridge and the Pillars of Hercules in the Straight of Gibraltar and the European coasts of the Mediterranean and North Seas. If Europe ever wanted to separate itself from the rest of the world and spin on its own axis, such axis would pass exactly through this point on a mountain slope above the road skirted by the turbulent river of Tisza.
This is a scenic place: the road and the Tisza meander among densely overgrown mountains, whose steep slopes close in on all sides making one feel protected and secluded from the rest of the world. The humble sign marking the center of Europe put up a few years ago became one of the expressions of Ukraine’s independence and perhaps even a manifestation of its affiliation with the West or even a claim to such affiliation. Many people find it comforting to think that they live in the center and not somewhere in the periphery, almost in Asia.
However, I have learned first hand that we had better not flaunt our Central European location before foreigners. Whenever told about the Ukrainian center of Europe, they usually frown in surprise, shrug, and change the subject. The less well mannered scoff at the first mention of such a center. The reason behind this is not only the glaring incongruity between the habits and practices the foreigners encounter in Ukraine and the actual European standards of living. For the West, Europe once ended on the borders of the Russian Empire (“an Asiatic country”) and later abutted on the Iron Curtain that descended along the western border of the Soviet sphere, through the cracks of which Europe would often be treated to putrid smells, nuclear emissions, fumes of its miserable and unsanitary medieval living conditions, along with heavy clouds of darkness.
Meanwhile, to the citizens of the Free World the center of Europe is something completely different: public welfare and prosperity, constitutional freedoms, clean and trim cities, and colorful networks of high-quality roads. It is against this background that we tout our “center of Europe” upon the Tisza, next to which, incidentally, two so-called toilets have been built in the classic Soviet, “Asiatic” if you like, style as an unmistakable sign of our European identity.
This is happening now. But what will happen to us, Europe, and the rest of the world fifty, a hundred, or two hundred years from now? History has shown that the most unshakable realities of a certain epoch could undergo unbelievable metamorphoses or disappear altogether. Some cities and countries gain weight and power, while the others sink into oblivion or lose their former grandeur. To illustrate, in the early seventeenth century there was no such city as New York, which is now the center of global finance. It was only in 1626 that the Dutch West Indies Company founded a township called New Amsterdam, the future New York, on the territory of an Iroquois tribe. Roughly at the same time, the trade and military might of Venice, “the Mistress of the Seas,” with its invincible fleet and banks overflowing with gold, came to naught. In those days, the West revolved around Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Vienna. As you may know, the two latter cities have not preserved their former influence. Meanwhile, today everything changes at an unprecedented rate.
Throughout the centuries, centers of commerce, industry, and culture have migrated from country to country and from city to city, with politics, science, and culture created mostly in the cities. Will it always be like this? It appears people are a bit tired of living in the overcrowded concrete jungles of the megalopolises. After all, this is not the natural habitat of Homo sapiens. The price of the calm and quiet, pristine rivers, freshness of the woods, and smells of the steppe increases with each passing day. The more so that today as never before in the history of mankind computer technologies make seclusion possible without complete isolation from fellow human beings or teamwork. The contemporary hermits and cavemen can remain active, informed, and sociable members of the community.
Suppose that before long such oases as our Carpathians in the noisy urban jungle will become the actual centers of life and creativity of mankind. Such places are too few in Europe. Here blue waves of the Carpathian ridges reach as far as the eye can see; the hills are so steep that tall firs and beeches almost touch the slopes with their crowns; pristine creeks meander in ravines, their banks strewn with flowers; the highest and steepest meadows, mowed so painstakingly, can compete even with Britain’s turquoise lawns; travelers can always quench their thirst from mineral springs of cold tasty water. If we preserve these God-given mountains, they have a chance to become in the near future a quite attractive center of Europe despite all the mockery that is presently made of such an idea.
The Carpathians tend to conceal from the traveler the way to the top. He follows a steep path, and with each step the air becomes cooler and cleaner, and the sky seems darker and nearer. It seems that with a little more effort you will reach the desired summit. But this is not how it happens in the mountains. There you climb to one mountaintop only to see the way to the next. And yet again you climb a steep path, and the highest summit looms in the distance. There you can relax, rest, marvel at the landscape, pride yourself on your achievement, and head back down. But woe betide the traveler who believes this, because he will lack the stamina to further climb the steep and dangerous way to the top.
