Ukraine Border Town Fears Isolation as

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: Lifestyle | Reuters : Ukraine Border Town Fears Isolation as : EU Expands : Mon Jun 3, 1:16 PM ET : By Olena Horodetska : CHOP, Ukraine (Reuters) - Every week Bilo lines up for hours at a checkpoint to cross the Ukrainian : border and see his mother in Hungary. : "I visit her rather rarely, just once or twice a week," said the 28-year-old railway worker, smiling through : the window of his old Mercedes, which stands in a line of three dozen cars. : "I live in Uzhgorod and she is just a few kilometers (miles) away in Zahony, but that is Hungary. Now it : is easy. But they promised to impose visas. I do not know how it will work. She is old and needs my help. : It will be hard for us." : Bilo's family is just one of many thousands of families in Transcarpathia, Ukraine's most western region, : who will suffer when a new visa regime is implemented in neighboring countries hoping to join the : 15-nation European Union (news - web sites). : The multiethnic region, which has become home to thousands of Hungarians, Romanians, Roma, : Ukrainians, Russians, Czechs, Germans and Jews, borders four EU applicant countries -- Hungary, : Poland, Slovakia and Romania. : Those countries are closing tight their eastern borders as they try to convince the wealthy and skeptical : West that they can be trusted to keep out drugs, arms and unwanted migrants. : Some of the countries have promised to wait until the last minute to impose visas for millions of their : ethnic kin and Ukrainians living in the border regions, and have vowed to try to make the new rules as : easy as possible. : But fears are growing in Ukraine's capital Kiev and across the country that a new visa regime will isolate : the former Soviet state, which is struggling to shed its communist past, boost its economy and improve : living standards for its 49 million people. : Officials say it would be a heavy blow for millions of those who lived behind the Iron Curtain during the : Soviet era. They will now have to face a new wall. : PAPER WALL : "We have the impression here that the European Union is building a wall just like the Soviet Union many : years ago," said Volodymyr Horenetsky, mayor of Chop, a small city crossed by a major freight corridor : between Moscow and southern Europe. : "This wall is different, it will be a paper wall. But nobody is going to win from this division, and people : living in the border region will suffer the most," he told a group of foreign reporters. "It is not the best time : for Chop." : Many in Chop, who easily mix Hungarian and Ukrainian languages, earn their living from the so-called : "suitcase trade" -- smuggling cigarettes, gasoline or food products out of Ukraine to the border regions in : Hungary, Poland or Romania. : Transcarpathia, a picturesque region of green mountains dotted with wooden churches and ruined castles, : has one of the highest levels of unemployment in Ukraine. Nearly 13 percent of the workforce is jobless, : official figures show. : Hennady Moscal, governor of Transcarpathia, said between 300,000 and 400,000 of the region's nearly 2 : million people were working abroad on building sites or farms. : "People go abroad to Russia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Portugal to earn money. Some of them : work officially, but not many. Almost 95 percent work illegally," he sighed. : Locals say only children and old people are left in some villages. : The clearly frustrated governor said the new visa regime would mean more problems for his : poverty-stricken region which has seen many ruling masters over the centuries. : Transcarpathia was an eastern outpost of the Austro-Hungarian empire in the 19th century. After : winning short-lived independence in 1918 the region fell under Czech control. Then the Nazi-Soviet pact : handed it to the Kremlin in 1940. : "Transcarpathia is geographically situated in the center of Europe," said Moscal, adding that Uzhgorod, : the regional capital where houses cry out for a coat of paint, was closer to Vienna than to Kiev. : "We used to live in Europe. I do not understand why they are closing doors on Ukraine ... The demands : are very harsh," he said. : CRIME, CORRUPTION, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION : President Leonid Kuchma has said Ukraine aims to join the European Union by 2011 but nobody in : Brussels takes the goal very seriously as the ex-Soviet state has a long way to go in implementing political : and economic reforms. : EU officials, hoping for a stable buffer zone, say Kiev must tackle organized crime and illegal : immigration. : Ukraine is rated as one of the world's 10 most corrupt nations by Transparency International, a : Berlin-based anti-graft watchdog. The government regularly issues anti-corruption decrees but the : actions fail to go much further than words. : Ukraine has also become a convenient transit route for illegal immigrants, drugs and arms. : Customs officials and border guards at the Chop crossing point said they seize minor drugs shipments : every day. They also frequently detain illegal immigrants. : "This year we have detained 18 people at this checkpoint. They tried to cross with fake passports," said : Evhen, a senior duty officer at the checkpoint. : "But it is more common for illegals to attempt to cross the border in forests or in mountains. There we : detain up to 40 people every week. Ukraine is the easiest and the shortest way. We border with four : Western countries," he said. : Most of the Ukrainian border crossings are under-equipped and under-staffed. Customs officers are : poorly paid and reports of corruption are frequent. The country also has porous borders with Russia, : Moldova and Belarus, its ex-Soviet family. : Officials cry out for funds, saying the cash-strapped state cannot afford necessary improvements to : border security. : The European Union has started to help Ukraine strengthen its western borders through its TACIS aid : program. It finances the reconstruction of the border crossing at the Ukrainian and Hungarian border, and : a road and a bridge at the Polish border. : The two projects are worth about $4.5 million. : "It will improve things. But it will not solve the problems," said David Kelly, TACIS senior project : engineer, overseeing the schemes. "Attitudes should change."