Arif Samad wrote:
"(...)By the way, saying Europe is a cultural entity is almost
laughable. Brits, Australians and Americans are probably closer
culturally than Brits and those Frenchmen. Since when is Australia
and America in Europe."

I'm thinking about the enormous cultural difference between two small
Russian villages on both sides of the continental border.

No, of course that difference isn't there.

But the Russians treat that border differently. They put some nice
markers along them, to be used as a backdrop for pictures of
tourists. You can compare these markers with centre markers. In this
way, it becomes a happy border. There is no way that the Russians
will ever divide their country along that line, for example in order
to become an EU member.

By the way, I think it was Stalin that said that Russians
are "really" Asians. And this was expanded to the fellow socialist
peoples in eastern and central Europe. They didn't like it; nor do
most Russians like it now.

"Is there a happy medium between the two ideas of physical and
cultural geography? Maybe, or maybe it is an unhappy medium. (...)"

I think that it will be an unhappy one, when it means drawing new
boundaries. Drawing new boundaries never pleases everybody, and there
is no real need for them either, I think. But you can always think
about them...

Peter S.