There are not very many cyclists on EuroVelo 13, also known as the Iron Curtain Trail. Some are travelling towards the North Cape, but it's lonely on the Finnish-Russian border, where the Iron Curtain Trail runs. About halfway along the route, I meet a cyclist in a small border museum: Kira Strelow (27) is also travelling along the Iron Curtain Trail. She started in Kirkenes at the beginning of June and plans to arrive at the Black Sea at the end of October. She mainly camps in the wild or spends the night in shelters. Kira says that she keeps coming up against boundaries and walls - within herself and in the world - that keep her busy. Can the Iron Curtain Trail give her answers? There is plenty of time for reflection on almost endless stages in impressive natural surroundings. It is not always enjoyable cycling and above all not a premium cycle route. The infrastructure is very poor. After around 2000 kilometres of the Iron Curtain Trail, we meet up in Helsinki for a chat.
Kira has a father from Thuringia who moved to the Rhineland after reunification of Germany. Her mother is Dutch. Her parents separated soon after Kira was born, so she grew up between Holland, the Rhineland and Thuringia. She travelled a lot by train - from Holland to her father in Bonn and to her grandmother in Saalfeld. "At some point as a child, I realised that I was always commuting between two countries and languages. I learnt that I had to use a different language when I was on the other side of the border." And many years later, she realised that there was another border that shaped her life. She saw children's drawings and photos of her father from his GDR youth. "I realised that he had grown up in a different country and in a different system. And so my German-Dutch origins took on another dimension."
During her school years in the Netherlands, German-German history only played a subordinate role. Old stories were hardly ever told in her family. ‘But I became curious and always wanted to know more.’
"Since I was a child, I regularly went on cycle tours lasting several days with my father, both in Germany and in other European countries. ‘I always really enjoyed this intensive travelling, and it also shaped me.’ This gave her the idea of going in search of traces herself. ‘I wanted to take a closer look at what the division of Germany and the division of Europe were all about.’ She talks about the many small pieces of the puzzle that contributed to her travelling the Iron Curtain Trail today. One of the decisive factors was a photo exhibition in France as part of a photography festival on the subject of ‘Walls and Borders’. ‘That really touched and impressed me.’ This exhibition also focussed on the division of Germany as a prototype for other walls in Europe. What do borders and walls do to people? Are they a construct of power? What does it mean for families and people when they are separated by borders?
"I'm often not good at dealing with these difficult topics. As they really affect me personally, I like to look away or ignore these issues." Then she becomes philosophical: ‘Maybe it's also to do with my own walls and boundaries in my head?’ The bike tour is a good way for me to deal with these issues. "I want to understand this history of the division of Europe and its consequences. And the best way for me to do that is to expose myself to it emotionally." That's why Kira doesn't choose books, but a bike and a tent and goes straight to the places. In Helsinki, at the end of the Finnish section, she says: "It just makes me sad when I see new fences being built and border crossings being closed, while I cycle along empty roads because there is no more border traffic. It seems like the history I read about in museums is repeating itself."
One reason for choosing EuroVelo 13 was that this cycle route also symbolises cross-border connections. It was seen as the hope for a world with fewer walls and borders. The opposite happened. But the cycle tour is not for nothing. You have to test your own mental and physical limits, recognise the walls in your head and tear them down if necessary. You also have to strike a balance between the freedom of travelling by bike and stopping wherever you like, and the constraints of keeping an eye on the route, finding the next place to sleep and making sure you have enough to eat.
Kira has a master's degree in astronomy. The borderless universe is her subject. ‘But science is also always about limits,’ she explains. "You're constantly searching for the limits: How far back can you look to the Big Bang? How small can you look at distant planets and stars? For me, however, it only becomes really interesting when you make connections across borders, for example between specialist areas or between art and science." At least one thing is certain: "From an astronomical point of view, the Earth is boundless - a small blue sphere in space on which we all live together. It will be exciting to see what answers Kira has found when she arrives at the Black Sea after another 8,000 kilometres and 17 countries.
