GBBE Arrested At BYLTPL!
-- Already on the Great Baltic Border Expedition's 2nd day on its way from the BYLTPL tripoint we were arrested by the Polish Border Police, GBBE-member Hans Peter Nissen reports on telephone from Augustow, Poland. -- But after about 45 minutes when the officer understood actually who he had arrested and this small misunderstanding eventually was cleared up, Mr. Nissen continues.
Augustow, Poland: The ten person big group headed by Mr. Peter Hering found their way towards the tripoint on an old Polish-Soviet road in a surprising good condition. -- Usually these roads are either destroyed or overgrown by trees. Here we found it in an excellent condition leading us easily to the tripoint, the Danish border enthusiast reported.
Mr. Nissen explains how the group discussed actually where The Point was located. Mr. Jesper Nielsen, a senior map expert, studied the river bend point in all possible (and impossible) angles before he declared that the Byelorussian-Lithuanian-Polish tricountries' meeting point had to be in the middle of an L-shaped bend, nicely marked by three border stones. (A lot of photos were taken and will be posted in this forum as soon as the expeditions reaches the civilization.)
Not much later when the GBBE group was searching for a possible closed border road a jeep rapidly approached, and a very angry officer jumped out of it and shouted terrible loudly in Polish on the poor travellers what imagined they were doing on this godforsaken place! Ms. Ann R. Kennard, a researcher at Faculty of Languages and European Studies of the University of the West of England in Bristol was at this point the only person in the group who understood what this official actually said in his greetings to the expedition's members, told him back in a very slightly broken Polish that they were members of an international border delegations and showed him copies of the delegation's correspondence with the Polish Government about the group's mission. Nevertheless our Polish friend from the Straz Graniczna RP – the famous Polish State Border Guards – was not born yesterday, and was bold enough to order his headquarter to make a special and most urgent international call to the mentioned faculty on the British Isles! Soon thereafter he was faced with the message that Ms. Kennard actually was Ms. Kennard and calmed almost down to a normal behaviour.
It was then this somewhat brusque Polonian discovered a number of footprints in the boundary sand which is dividing the Byelorussian and Polish territory. The Border Police officer further inquired if they understood that they actually more or less had violated the Schengen border (i.e. the one counted from 1 May 2004) - the most remote point of the rather-soon-going-to-be European Union's external frontier? --Who of you have been there?!?, he asked. Everybody raised their hands, simply because, yes, all the ten members in fact had been over the border (Most of them not only once!). -- Now we have no chance to separate your footprints from any Afghan, Indian, Azerbaijan or other asylum seeker's, he complained more or less completely broken.
And this point the officer understood that neither his jeep or his jail did not have place for this American-European border people. He was ready to make his next move. --You are not going to stay in my district also tomorrow?, he nervously inquired. When Ms. Kennard stated that they did not have any such plans, but to move towards Kaliningrad he at once smiled from ear-to-ear. Then Mr. Hering himself handed over a small souvenir from the delegation, a cute small whistle, and both sides said a nice farewell to each other.
The second day of the GBBE had ended.
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