Where east meets west

Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the EU, is not impressed by European complaints that the location of this week's EU-Russia summit is too far from Brussels. “It's only eight hours' flight from Moscow,” he says of the venue, the far-eastern city of Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border. But then the ambassador, who admits that he has never been to Khabarovsk either, warms to the topic and concedes that perhaps the choice was designed to send a signal after all. It is not just about “showing our European friends how vast Russia is”, he says. The EU delegation, headed by Czech President Vacláv Klaus, will be confronted with the “historic achievement of past generations in expanding the borders of European civilisation” all the way to China. The EU delegation may find more consolation in the thought that Khabarovsk happens at least to be a good springboard for its next stop: Seoul, South Korea, just a stone's throw away.