Quiet frontiers

In the early days of revolution before New China, Chinese Communist leaders were smuggled across the border here to attend meetings with their Soviet counterparts. Even further along the timeline, the last Qing emperor, Puyi, was captured at its railway station, in a failed attempt to escape across the border.

These days, however, the only people stopped at Manzhouli are travelers without the proper papers.

This is China's largest border checkpoint. It boasts a monumental guomen, or national gate, which serves double duty as a center to process border formalities and as a favorite tour site for domestic travelers.

Russia, within hailing distance and a double row of barbed wires across no man's land, is linked via the historic train tracks.

Only Chinese citizens are allowed into the checkpoint grounds. Foreigners, with or without passports, are normally refused entry.

Within the compound is a museum documenting Manzhouli's beginnings and rise to recognition. There's a shopping mall as well, selling everything from Russian chocolates to Siberian furs.

When the Chinese economy opened up in the 1980s, Manzhouli awoke from its long slumber as a back post. It became an important center for Russian-Chinese trade. By the 1990s, it was a booming hub of cross-border transactions.

Some of these businesses, however, fell by the wayside when Russian authorities banned trade on commodities they felt were draining their natural resources, such as the vast amount of timber that was going by the trainloads into China.

There were once hundreds of timber yards thriving in Manzhouli. But fewer than five still stand and, at most, only one operates, because of the higher costs of importing Russian logs.

This is only one of many links this Chinese border town shares with its nearest and largest neighbor.

Many Russians still visit, crossing the border from smaller towns and cities, such as Chita, Krasnokamensk, Irkutsk and Ulan Ude - all connected by rail.