Russia's %26ldquo;near abroad%26rdquo; is becoming Europe's neighbourhood

NORTH of the Caspian Sea, Europe seems a world away. The steppe stretches into Asia. A statue of Genghis Khan stands in the region's main town, Uralsk. The Lesser Horde (an administrative division of the Mongol empire) was proclaimed here.

Yet near this statue stands a house where Russia's great poet, Alexander Pushkin, stayed. And through the vast landscape runs the Zhaiyk river, which meanders down from the Urals, Europe's traditional eastern boundary. As you cross westward, the sign on the bridge says simply %26ldquo;Europe%26rdquo;; as you return, %26ldquo;Asia%26rdquo;.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, says that, if his country ever applied to join the European Union, it would have a better claim than Turkey. That is because more of its territory lies west of the river Zhaiyk than there is Turkish land west of the Bosporus.

The margins of Europe lend themselves to games about where the continent ends, but they are more than a curiosity. Dealing with Russia and reducing European dependence on its oil and gas has become one of the main preoccupations of the . Relations with the Kremlin have become trickier of late. Last week's Russia-summit in Finland turned ugly, with Vladimir Putin saying Russia was no more corrupt than Spain, and pointing out that %26ldquo;mafia%26rdquo; is an Italian word, not a Russian one.