The region of Dievenišk and Šalčininkai is an enclave of Lithuania surrounded by the border of Belarus. When Lithuania and Belarus were both part of the Soviet Union the border between these countries was just a line on a map, and several villages in this region straddled this border. With Lithuania’s membership of the European Union in 2004, its borders became subject to the Schengen Agreement, and in 2007/8 a barbed-wire fence was erected along the border with Belarus that physically and permanently divided villages, families and friends.
