The term «refraction» means a change in the direction of a wave at the boundary of two media, refraction. Something similar can be found in material terms in the boundary landscape at the intersection of natural and human, Soviet and post-Soviet. After the collapse of the USSR, the external borders were revised, but the internal borders of the state also came into play. All border zones resemble each other, there is a certain common element that transforms the transition zones into a separate disjointed, fragmented, but vastly distorted territory.