Mount El’brus

Has Mount Blanc become smaller? Or has Caucasus grown higher? Neither of course, but still, Mount Blanc is no longer the highest peak in Europe. Mount El’brus is.

Mount Blanc is 4 808 meters high. Mount El’brus stands 5 642 meters. Why did my schoolbooks tell me that the highest peak in Europe is Mount Blanc?

The answer is the Soviet Union.

The lack of working politics between the two halves of Europe had effects even in the geography books.

Neither did we learn about the different countries that the Soviet Union consisted of. Except for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that we all learned were invaded and incorporated unwillingly.

The Soviet Union wasn’t interested in Europe. We were not interested in them.

But I can’t help to feel disappointed of the whole of Sweden when I realize that even something so simple and non political and very measurable and objective like the height of a mountain peak was altered to suit the needs.

Caucasus is not part of Europe, some might say. Well, I accept that there are different opinions about this.

Did you know that it was a Swede suggesting where the boarder to Asia should be? He drew the line 300 km north of the Caucasus Mountains, through a depression. Now this was about 1730 so he probably didn’t do it to exclude Mount El’brus from Europe. At least I hope not.

Now, he was not alone to draw the boarder between Asia and Europe, and more than one line leaves Mount El’brus belonging to Europe.

My point is: I didn’t even know that Mount El’brus existed when I went to school. The Soviet Union was a big gray area that minded their own business. Period.