A lone figure picks their way through the ethereal frosted landscape of Novosibirsk, Russia.
(VALERY TITIEVSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
Because Russia has no real physical barriers against Europe or Asia, these areas -- the European borderlands of Eastern and Central Europe, the Asian borderlands of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia -- are the spaces it naturally must fill when it is strong and abandon when it is weak....
