alt Hacker NewsI'm mid fourties and I remember bordercrossings were annoying back in the 90ies. I'm Danish so we didn't enter Schengen until around 2000. I guess it didn't help that I was young enough that we traveled by bus. Once when we were on a school trip to Prauge we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around.
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afiori • 11/04/2025
Germany still does this, to a good fraction of incoming long distance busses (but not trains IIUC)
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> we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around
Quite common in Eastern Europe before Schengen. That's why we hate border patrols, police and all sorts of uniformed men in general. They used to cut young people's blue jeans or long hair back in the '80s and bribing them was common before 2005. We also had quite a lot of policemen jokes (they were called militia men before 1990). One goes like "Why do militia men work in couples? Because one knows how to read and the other knows how to write.". I used to wish that we join Schengen so we no longer have to deal with border police any longer and they'd lose their jobs or get moved to a different border. If finally happened. Now Germany Poland, Austria and also other EU states introduce "temporary" border checks. Which they keep extending. Great.