In fact, Russia's Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk is almost as far from what is usually defined as "Europe" as you can get.

So why has Russia decided to hold a an EU summit in the city on the banks of the mighty Amur River this Thursday and Friday?

The country could have held the annual get-together with EU Commission and EU presidency chiefs in Russian cities like Pskov or Saint Petersburg, close enough to Baltic EU members for a leisurely day trip.

But analysts said Russia, which has shown increasing assertiveness in the last years, has chosen to invite the EU chiefs out to Khabarovsk to remind Europe of its continent-straddling status as the world's largest country.

President Dmitry Medvedev acknowledged in a television interview ahead of the summit that the EU leaders would have a better understanding of Russia if they saw the country beyond the more familiar cities further west.

"Russia is a big country," he pointed out.

"When we met last year with our EU colleagues, my suggestion was that they come to see not just what Russia looks like, not just in its European part or in the Urals and Siberia but also in the Far East.

"It will be interesting for them to see what our Far East looks like and most importantly they will have the chance to get a better feeling for Russia and our relations will become more fundamental."

The voyage to Khabarovsk for EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, EU foreign policy supreme Javier Solana and the EU's Czech presidency comes at a time of continued tensions in EU-Russia relations.

The two sides remain at odds over Russia's recognition of two Georgian breakaway regions as independent states, are still edgy over the New Year gas crisis and have traded barbs over human rights.

Meanwhile, Russia and China have been developing increasingly close ties, particularly in energy, although bilateral trade remains a fraction of China-US trade volumes and has been hit by the economic crisis.

"Khabarovsk is hardly the best place for a Russia-EU summit, taking into account Russia's moves in the Far East to develop relations with China and other countries in the region," said Andrey Ryabov, analyst with the Carnegie Centre in Moscow.

"The city was chosen to show: 'if you don't want to cooperate with us, then we have other possibilities, other directions in which we can develop'."

A favourite pastime of locals in Khabarovsk is to take the ferry up the river to the Chinese city of Fuyuan, a mere 90 minutes away.

Russia's envoy to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov said the choice of Khabarovsk was aimed at showing EU leaders Russia's historic achievement in pushing European civilisation towards the Far East.

"This hasn't been done simply just to show our partners how big Russia is... but also to remind them of the historic achievements of past Russian generations who pushed European civilisation to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, China and Japan."

The city is named after the legendary 17th century Russian adventurer Yerofey Khabarov whose expoloration of the Amur river opened up the area for Russian colonisation.

The EU leaders will find in Khabarovsk a prime example of a Russian city which grew rapidly after its founding in 1858 and the arrival of the trans-Siberian railway at the turn of the century.

But according to Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Politics, the EU leaders' accumulation of air miles is unlikely to yield results to heal poor bilateral ties.

"Russia-Europe relations are in a disastrous state. Unresolved problems have been snowballing. The more there are the harder it is for the sides to understand one another."

Next year, however, EU leaders can expect a meeting much closer to home, with Russian officials predicting it will take place in the next holder of the EU presidency, Sweden.

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