Borderlines @BastonBorders Twitter profile

Pinned Tweet

Borderlines

7 months

Borderlines is on its way… my book can be pre-ordered through any of the sources linked here by my publishers. It’s an unusual angle on European history. I hope you like it.

14

18

162

Last Seen Profiles

@lmya56964

@PNJNNQmEeI36846

@Sanul_Khuluq

@trustintel

@sandihelmy66

@NDF_2022

@mika__katana7

@akiLYs_817

@bdooor_q

@_Theory1

@kolasexy1214

@Meidomm1

@trmsctrmsc

@lmya56964

@Jay41Deee

@sandihelmy66

@ruraldistrict69

@mika__katana7

@sbv1941

@bdooor_q

@tannu_786

@KoreptaLindsey

@kolasexy1214

@lmya56964

@jonny_oates

@bokeplokalmalam

@SuckaFreeMoe

@Fernand56614693

@stwmaniax

@akiLYs_817

@bbluestars_

@sandihelmy66

@bdooor_q

@nightcurrents

@boston_bbc

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

I stood boggle-eyed at the administration building in Satu Mare. My tolerance for this sort of thing is high but WOW.

60

59

851

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Possibly my favourite building in the world - the church of St Anne in Vilnius. It was centuries ahead of its time when it was built.

12

15

310

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

I took this picture yesterday and I’ve only just realised how clever this placard with a historical view of the main square in Gołdap is.

5

32

227

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

One of my favourite border-ish places. This 🇷🇴 grand station, Suceava-Nord, serves a small, quiet suburb. It was built on this grand scale because before 1918 it was the last station in the Habsburg empire so it had customs facilities - and an image to maintain…

5

22

197

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

At the corner of Bohemia 🇨🇿 Saxony 🇩🇪 (ex DDR) and Bavaria 🇩🇪. The boundary stones indicate past states too (ČS, B). As part of the Iron Curtain it was fortified once but no trace of that now. Photos a year ago today

4

23

165

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

It’s like a Communist era interpretation of a vampire castle where bad things happen and you certainly shouldn’t spend the night.

9

11

148

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

I don’t know if I can do this book anymore. The world is so bleak, and evil is so rampant, and it feels like my country and my continent have already failed.

27

5

123

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

10 months

New version of the book cover! Publication June 2024.

7

16

121

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

International border! I’m in Baarle-Nassau 🇳🇱 but Baarle-Hertog 🇧🇪 starts at the corner. The two conjoined Baarles have some of the world’s most intricate and oddest borders running between them.

9

12

124

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

So much to learn from this fascinating map; ‘region first’ attachment overlaps a lot with borderlands. Not surprising to see Alsace, Flanders, Czech Silesia and Transylvania- but Burgenland too?

8

33

126

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

6 months

Borderlines has arrived! Just enjoyed that authorial moment of pleasure and satisfaction that comes with opening the box of new, fresh books.

14

4

122

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Every angle a new way of being terrifying.

6

7

117

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

A year ago today - Pécs 🇭🇺. As you may know, I’m fond of these provincial Hungarian and ex-Hungarian cities. Pécs has the distinctive feature that its Islamic period is represented so prominently…

8

7

105

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

6 months

My contribution - in Borderlines - to the discussion about what Central Europe is and where.

9

106

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Lower Silesia is a remarkable, deeply strange part of the world that more people should know about. It’s got a chapter in my book.

Anna Tuckett

@AnnaMTuckett

1 year

I finally have an excuse to post the photo of this #baroque pulpit from a church in a village in Lower Silesia, Poland.

177

1K

9K

3

7

103

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

5 months

Waterstones Trafalgar Square!

4

6

103

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Come to Oradea. It’s even nicer with a bit of sunshine! Beautiful buildings, full of bakeries and coffee places, a pleasant Central European vibe of different cultures gently diffusing.

6

13

100

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

We might be heading for the Wurst-Käse scenario.

12

6

95

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Can I just say how much I love the barriers at the car park by the concert hall in Tallinn?

4

11

90

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

7 months

Did I mention that the book is on its way?

6

11

88

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

11 months

A little stretch of the Netherlands-Belgium border in Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog. The towns are a conjoined irregular grid of enclaves and the border crops up in weird corners and byways. 🇳🇱 🇧🇪

3

12

89

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Me at the Triplex Confinium, a monument at the border of Hungary, Serbia and Romania - on a cold day in January. I’ve written a fair bit about Trianon in the book - I’m not very sympathetic to the politics of century-old imperial grievance.

6

5

83

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

4 months

On the border of Italy 🇮🇹 and Slovenia 🇸🇮 at Gorizia/ Nova Gorica on this day I. 2015.

8

2

82

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

6 months

Beautiful morning in Armenia. View over to Mount Ararat.

3

84

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

11 months

The other day in north London (Tottenham). Unusual to have the pre-1939 outline of Poland on their shop display!

9

3

71

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Debrecen station is quite attractive in a reform-Communist sort of style.

5

3

72

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

4 years

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Plan for European integration. Robert Schuman was a borderlander, who grew up when his native Lorraine was part of Germany (before 1918).

2

28

69

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Monschau, on the German-Belgian border, a year ago. ‘Montjoie’ until 1918. It was discussed at Versailles in 1919; the town stayed in Germany but its railway line became Belgian. It’s an achingly pretty town. Thinking today of people in the region coping with horrendous floods.

2

14

73

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Thanks to @jonnbousfield - a rail map of Poland, 1937. With the design flourishes we have come (via @JCBretan ) to expect.

5

12

72

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

You can feel this along the Hungary-Romania border, a region where Romania overtook a while ago. There’s more energy and visible prosperity in Oradea 🇷🇴 for instance than on the other side.

Modern Warfare with Dacian Draco

@DacianDracoMW3

1 year

🚨its completely official 🇷🇴Romania surpassed 🇭🇺Hungary in GDP Per Capita - source: Eurostat All that russian gas, chinese companies and Bruxells bashing didnt help you this time, Orban🤦‍♀️

61

160

1K

7

15

68

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

This is brilliant. It’s how borders should be in an ideal world - and congratulations to 🇪🇪 and 🇱🇻 for taking it from dream to reality.

Task & Purpose

@TaskandPurpose

2 years

The border between Latvia and Estonia looks rad

101

1K

12K

2

19

66

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Cat guardian of the castle. When I tried to parley, cat retreated. Stares menacingly at me from a distance, licking its lips, perhaps channelling nearby heraldic lion. 2/10 for friendliness, 10/10 for sinister ambition @thecatreviewer

0

9

66

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

An old border - the bridge between Silesia and Moravia in Ostrava 🇨🇿 four years ago.

2

3

63

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

A cartographer’s cautionary note on an RAF map of Central Europe. The frontiers changed again in September 1943 after the Italian surrender that month!

3

12

63

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Wrocław town hall looking radiant against an inky blue black sky.

0

1

62

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

A year ago today - a cold climb up the hill in Zemun, which is now a suburb of Belgrade but in 1914 was a frontier town of Austria-Hungary. The first shots of WW1 were fired from the fort here.

2

4

60

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

I do love Czech spa towns (and Slovak and Polish ones too of course).

3

1

62

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

5 months

My FT piece about the European Parliament elections and the Poland Germany border

4

7

61

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

A Latvian landscape - a castle in the forest, on this day in 2018 🇱🇻

4

58

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Sibiu - where the houses have eyes 👁️

2

1

60

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

I’ve ripped my way through most of this fascinating history of Ukraine by @SPlokhy - it’s a very approachable read. Lots of echoes past and present, and the clearest account I’ve ever seen of Ukraine’s chaotic history in 1917-22.

4

9

53

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Farewell Bartoszyce. I’m getting a bus from outside the disused station, which also still bears the town’s German name of Bartenstein. There doesn’t seem to be much information out there on the history of the railway other than it was built in 1866.

8

6

57

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Tarnów railway station 🇵🇱. Scene of a terrorist attack on 28 August 1939 which killed 19 people. The bombing was organised by the Nazi German intelligence services.

1

11

56

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Happy Christmas, and thanks for all the encouragement and fellowship over the last two years. Looking forward to further adventures in the borderlands in 2022.

7

2

58

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Four years ago - Helsinki’s imposing central rail station against a cold, clear blue sky 🇫🇮. I had arrived by Allegro train from Vyborg 🇷🇺 (annexed from Finland and ethnically cleansed in 1940/44). The Allegro doesn’t run any more for obvious reasons.

2

3

56

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Elbląg! The reconstructed Prussian-ish Polish-ish centre is obviously newly built, and plain compared to what was destroyed, but the overall effect is jolly. Not what I was expecting. But it is a nice sunny holiday afternoon.

6

5

56

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

The centre of the ceiling of the Neolog (Reform) synagogue in Oradea. As with a number of provincial Hungarian cities splendid synagogues were built in the late C19 and were damaged but not destroyed in mid C20 and have been lovingly restored since.

2

8

55

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Home for the next few days - a preposterous slice of Hungarian Art Nouveau ❤️

5

0

55

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Wrocław has little gnomes scattered across the city. This one is by the cathedral bridge and his job is to remove the padlocks people put on the bridge. It’s a common problem in river cities but I think Wrocław has a unique solution!

2

8

56

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Not coincidental that the core of the former Sudetenland votes for the populist. Depopulated, resettled in a way that tore up social bonds, communist industry, environmental disaster and democratic unemployment - and where the vote for the Communists and far right always strong.

Europe Elects

@EuropeElects

2 years

Czechia, Presidential election (second-round) today: As per the preliminary final result, Petr Pavel (*) wins a majority of votes in 11 regions and 59 districts, while Andrej Babiš (ANO-RE) wins in 3 regions and 17 districts #Czechia #Volby2023

3

30

168

1

20

52

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Four years ago today I was in Khust, in Ukraine. It left a huge impression on me - a little country town, with a ruined castle and a beautiful little synagogue, capital for a few days in 1939 of the little state of Carpatho-Ukraine.

2

4

55

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Bucharest. Not really on any borders but I made it.

4

1

54

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

A year ago today - around the Dreiländereck 🇵🇱 🇱🇹 🇷🇺. The Russian side of the obelisk is forbidden while one can pass freely between Poland and Lithuania. When I visited there was a big new fence between LT and RU but woods and watchtowers along PL/RU…

2

4

53

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

6 months

Metz, five years ago today - the view from my hotel room. Quintessentially French and German looking buildings next to each other, reflecting the city’s borderland history.

5

52

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Krynki. It is mildly famous, among people who are interested in this sort of thing, for its ten-exit roundabout in the centre.

2

4

51

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

5 months

Happy Borderlines Day!

5

6

50

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Early start - east of Białystok. Very different countryside from around Gołdap (but still forested of course). Mixture of Catholic and Orthodox churches, small wooden village houses - and an army base; we’re close to Belarus now.

3

52

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Traces of the imperial German/ Russian border 1815-1914 (and 1940-41) at Nemirseta 🇱🇹

2

7

53

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

My phone decided to remind me of this landscape and haystack in Jívka, near the Adrspach rocks and the Czech-Polish border 🇨🇿 (September 2021).

3

2

52

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

5 months

Eve of the official publication day!

5

6

51

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

7 months

Got my hands on a copy of the borders book by ⁦ @JonnElledge ⁩ - every bookshelf should have a copy, and a gap next to it for when ‘Borderlines’ is available in the wild… congrats to Jonn on his achievement.

1

8

50

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Treblinka site. It feels like the end of the world.

4

3

50

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Netherlands-Germany border running through the lobby of an office block in Kerkrade 🇳🇱 Herzogenrath 🇩🇪

3

5

50

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Welcome to borderless (ish) Schengen land, Croatia 🇭🇷! It doesn’t remove the persistent territorial dispute with Slovenia but it makes it easier to manage. Picture is a now-redundant border control near Samobor, June 2021.

2

10

49

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

7 months

A Hungarian Turul (mythical eagle) at the castle in Uzhhorod, Ukraine - I visited five years ago today, an example of cultural pluralism in Ukrainian Carpathia.

6

4

50

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

7 months

Five years ago today - me and the big statue of a toad in Kreshchatyy Park in central Kyiv. I like toads. I like Kyiv 🇺🇦

2

4

47

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Four years ago today - my introduction to Chernivtsi 🇺🇦. It was raining but somehow the city’s charm was already working on me. It left a huge impression on me - its beauty, history, artistic and intellectual culture - and became one of my favourite places ever.

4

5

48

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Széchenyi square in Pécs 🇭🇺. Though Central Europe has glorious capitals, my greatest pleasure has been discovering some of the provincial cities.

3

48

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

In the Ukrainian cultural museum in Svidnik, eastern Slovakia. Doing this book I’ve been to a lot of small town museums and I’m always grateful to the curators and staff of them. They keep the lights of history and culture going. 🇺🇦 🇸🇰

2

48

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Trompe l’œil mural in Sródka, Poznań

1

6

44

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

A slumbering railway line near the Poland-Belarus border near Borowniki: it opened 1866 between Białystok and Baranovichi but I don’t know when it closed. @jonworth

10

6

46

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

In Suwałki. I’ve crossed the old border between German East Prussia and Russian-annexed Poland. I don’t think it’s just my historical imagination at work: the town does feel significantly east of Gołdap…

6

3

44

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Bialystok in bloom - a year ago. It was nicer than I expected - I tend to find reasons to like places I’m in. But it was also the gateway to little fragments of the region’s multicultural past identity - Jewish, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Tatar Muslim.

8

0

47

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

One foot in Latvia 🇱🇻 and one in Estonia 🇪🇪. I suppose part of why I’m writing the book is the sheer, innocent delight at being able to do this, and the almost philosophical puzzlement of this status.

3

45

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Khust! This small town in western Ukraine found a place in my heart when I went there. It’s not a popular tourist locale and I think the hospitable people at the hotel were a bit baffled to have this lone Englishman to stay…

3

4

45

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Another side of Satu Mare. I feel I may not be here long enough to get a sense of how it all fits together as a city.

4

1

45

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

10 months

The threshold of 2024… when my book Borderlines is published. It’s been an exciting trip writing it, I hope people like the result…

4

1

45

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Looking forward to reading this. The Big House, and its destruction, is not just an Irish phenomenon but also relevant to Poland, Ukraine, the German east and the Hungarian borderlands.

6

7

47

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Strasbourg cathedral in the evening light.

2

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Farewell for now to Pécs- and my rather stylish temporary home, the Palatinus Grand hotel.

7

1

45

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Book by @steven_seegel arrived today! Maps and ethnography in Central Europe. Having been intrigued by the Teleki map, and the geographer-PM’s career, I look forward to reading more.

3

5

46

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Three years ago today In Helmstedt 🇩🇪- on the former border between East and West Germany and an attractive town in its own right. Also a reminder of quite how far east Germany went - it’s only a third of the way across 1914 Germany.

6

4

46

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

A conclusion - I hope - to the saga of my train border crossing from Osijek to Pécs 🇭🇷 🇭🇺. It’s happening! The fellow at the ticket office here in Osijek sold me a ticket to Pécs/ Pečuh for a princely Kn27 (€3.59).

3

0

46

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

There’s something very uplifting about a good Polish Rynek. They’re cheerful, completely public spaces, with an architectural unity in diversity. This one is in Poznań.

3

42

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Been busy with the day job for a bit (by-elections in the UK last Thursday) but here is, almost a year ago, the Netherlands 🇳🇱 Germany 🇩🇪 border running through the lobby of an office building at Kerkrade/ Herzogenrath.

2

7

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

I like Oradea. I went for a walk this morning; its city centre is very grand in places and reflects its multicultural identity. It’s definitely ‘Central Europe’

1

2

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Not a borders trip as such but I’ve just taken the Sail Rail from home in London to our neighbours in the Netherlands. It’s a civilised and pretty cost effective way to travel. In a cafe in beautiful Dordrecht.

8

4

44

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Statue of Queen Marie of Romania in Oradea - she was born in Kent 🇬🇧 (grand daughter of Victoria). She was a very effective advocate for Romania’s interests in Paris 1919; the country was pretty lucky to get Oradea as it was overwhelmingly Hungarian in the 1910 census.

4

5

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Grave and memorial of Copernicus. Frombork. A genius from the borderlands.

1

9

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Cathedral at Frombork from the nearby tower; behind it is the Wiślany Lagoon, looking northwards in the vague direction of the Russian (Kaliningrad) border.

5

1

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Boarding the Euro Night train at Berlin Ostbahnhof, heading for Budapest Nyugati. A helpful and courteous MAV (Hungarian Railways) guard welcomed me on board. 🇩🇪 🇭🇺

6

1

43

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

Last leg of the journey from Białystok to north London. I’m tired of travel. Well, not Travel - being somewhere different, I’ll never be tired of that - but being on buses and planes and at airports.

4

0

41

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

One of my favourite border images - on this day in 2018 near the tri-point of Slovakia, Hungary and Austria. The warning sign, nourished by the fertile muddy soil, turning into a spindly tree that looks like something from the imagination of David Lynch. 🇸🇰 🇭🇺 🇦🇹

1

2

42

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

More of my strange love for the Upper Silesia metro area. This is Bytom 🇵🇱 (Beuthen 🇩🇪 before 1945). I visited in January 2019. I found the architecture interesting.

2

42

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

2 years

@jonworth A detour via Česka Lipa and you could visit…

1

11

39

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

The book takes another step towards corporeal existence…

3

1

42

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

6 months

Delighted by the reception that advance copies of Borderlines are getting.

Giles Fraser

@giles_fraser

6 months

Already massively enjoying this! @lewis_baston

2

0

6

4

0

41

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

1 year

Farewell, Elbląg. I’ve decided I like the new-old town. It’s cheerful. And its - shall we say ‘fusion’ - architecture is itself an expression of the town and Poland’s complex history. It’s distinctive of early C21 Poland.

2

1

40

Borderlines

@BastonBorders

3 years

Farewell for a bit, Poland, as I head towards Berlin on the night train

2

39