evidence: The island is divided in almost equal sections between Russia and China. The Soviet Union occupied the whole of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (known as Heixiazi, or Black Bear, in Chinese) following the so-called Chinese Eastern Railway Incident of 1929, but in an historic agreement between Russia and China signed in 2004, Moscow agreed to return about half of it. The transfer took place in 2008. Since then the island in the Ussuri has become a miniature symbol of the vast Asian regions divided between the two geopolitical giants. [...] There was one point where the border guards and the "razvedchik" were clearly in disagreement. What will become of the island? One of the reasons for the partition — the main reason, I believe — was the implicit promise that China would help develop the border area with heavy investment and millions of tourists. Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island was to be a spearhead of this effort, a paradise of untouched nature transformed into a booming tourist zone and a hub of cross-border ties between Russia and China. Western sanctions have further pushed the notion that Russia’s future lies in developing closer ties with China. Bolshoy Ussuriysky is one of just three or four locations where this is being ground-tested. While the border guards and the people in the border village take the plans more or less seriously, the "razvedchik" had no qualms telling me this is nonsense and that sometimes he does not understand people in Moscow.