ABSTRACT
O f all the former Soviet Union’s neighbours (except China), Iran shared the longest borders with it. And after its collapse, Iran remains the only country which shares borders, either at sea or on land, with most of the USSR’s successor states on its southern rim. In the Transcaucasus, Iran has the longest borders with Azerbaijan, a relatively short border with Armenia, and no borders with Georgia. Over the centuries, this geographic proximity has led to close ethnic, cultural, and religious ties between Iran and most of the former Soviet Union’s Muslim republics, notably those in Transcaucasia.
