The border between Croatia and Slovenia turns particularly unusual and twisted at several points west of Zagreb. At one point a little bulb of Croatia protrudes into Slovenia like a geographic hernia. It’s not a practical exclave or a pene-exclave, either. A road goes straight down its pencil-thin neck to connect a small town and a few farmhouses within the bulb to the rest of Croatia. Residents there don’t need to negotiate any border controls. I’d love to live in a little geo-oddity like that someday.
Yet, inexplicably, this isn’t even the weirdest thing about that convoluted border. I mentioned Brezovica pri Metliki in Odds and Ends 3 some months ago. At the time I said, “It’s not worth going into detail when it’s already known.” However, slowly, I’ve come to realize that while it may be known in small circles, even those who are aware of it don’t seem to have a lot of details. Otherwise, I wouldn’t receive a steady stream of search engine visitors on that page. All I did was mention Brezovica pri Metliki in passing. Twelve Mile Circle shouldn’t come up on the first page of Google results for that topic as it did this evening. That doesn’t make sense.
I still don’t have a lot of information although I’ve learned more than I knew before. Let’s drill down on the neighboring towns of Brezovica pri Metliki and Malo Leš?e, both in Slovenia.
A Closer Look
That is one seriously messed-up border. Slovenia bulges into Croatia, but instead of being neat-and-clean like the previous instance, this one twists upon itself in an origami mess. Good luck trying to decipher those boundaries. However, it’s even more complicated than it appears. Google apparently left off one important detail: a place that is either the most tortured chunk of tethered border area ever conceived, or a true exclave.
Observe the squiggle of Croatia running between Brezovica pri Metliki and Malo Leš?e that opens into a little triangular splotch. The “Boundary Point” discussion group noticed this patch called Brezovica Zumberacka in 2007 and were still trying to decipher its meaning in 2011. [UPDATE: this was on Yahoo Groups, which no longer exists]. Even maps produced locally in Croatia and Slovenia seem to differ in random ways. It’s not a Croatia versus Slovenia thing. Neither seems to care much about this infinitesimal sliver).
A slight preponderance of evidence seems to imply that it’s probably a Croatian exclave. A lot of evidence points the other way too. I’m not sure the discussion has arrived at the point of “agree to disagree” as much as it’s become a “we need someone in Brezovica pri Metliki, Brezovica Zumberacka or Malo Leš?e to look for markers and confirm it one way or the other.”
Relevance
It does matter, at least for now. Slovenia became a part of the Schengen Area in December 2007. Croatia, conversely, does not fall within the Schengen Area although that’s expected to happen by 2015. Croatian citizens have been granted a special access arrangement which eases the crossing into Slovenia although it’s still not completely hassle-free:
“Many people living near the border cross it several times a day (some work across the border, or own land on the other side of the border), especially on the border with Slovenia, which was unmarked for centuries as Croatia and Slovenia were both part of the Habsburg Empire (1527–1918) and Yugoslavia (1918–1991)… every Croatian citizen is allowed to cross the Schengen border into Hungary, Italy or Slovenia with an ID card and a special border card that is issued by Croatian police at border exit control.”
It’s not unlike the border situation between the United States and Canada created in the wake of 9-11. Cohesive communities formed atop porous boundaries now find themselves split by border controls.
Inconvenience
I found one Slovenian article that described some of the issues in Brezovica pri Metliki. Translation software got the basic points across. It noted that the convoluted borders caused lots of inconveniences. Residents reported issues with policemen assigned to patrol the border but who did not know the area. Thus they couldn’t distinguish residents from non-residents. Residents also felt under siege. Police constantly requested identification.
This area produced a lot of wine. Unfortunately many vintners owned land on both sides of the border. Now they worried about harvest time. They used to invite friends and family from outside of the area to help bring in the crop. Additionally, hunters come to the area in search of game and brought a reliable source of tourist revenue. They can’t do that much now with those wacky boundaries. Border controls will have a tangible economic impact.
This will become an academic exercise once Croatia joins the Schengen Area. It will be an interesting artifact that won’t have much of a meaningful impact anymore. In other words, it will be like the preceding five centuries.
Obviously I would be interested if the knowledgeable 12MC audience can find more information about this situation and can help enlighten the rest of us.
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