Border crossings between USSR and Afghanistan in the 1960s
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One such crossing was over the Amu Darya river, which separates the Uzbek (Soviet) city of Termez from Hairatan. As Uzbekistan is doubly landlocked, it has no seaports, and Termez is the most important of its riverine ports. In ancient times the port was at nearby Kampyr-Tepe. Before the various bridges were built, "[t]here had been river traffic between Termez and Afghanistan for many years", including ferries. Termez's present port facilities were built up along with or after a Russian "fortress and garrison" was installed there in the 1890s. A bridge across another section of the same river was built in 1901. In the 1960s, it must have been practical to cross the river from Termez to Hairatan.
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I've been to that border region in 2011. It's a largely barren, semi-desert area, hilly and mountainous. As such I'd not be at all surprised if the border was pretty much impossible to patrol for either country without investing massive amounts of manpower and material. While I didn't get very close to the border, I saw no roads leading towards it that would indicate patrol roads along the border, let alone things like watch towers and other fortifications.
So it's entirely possible (I'd say even very likely) that there may well have been a lively cross border smuggling going on.
And that was during the days of the struggle with the Taliban, who saw the Uzbek government as an enemy (Uzbekistan does not allow people being openly religious, ANY religion, and does not allow proselitising within its borders, they also hosted several western nations' air forces providing air support for ground troops operating against the Taliban at the time).
I wouldn't be surprised if there were occasional helicopter patrols of the border, but I didn't see any. During the Soviet era there'd have been more resources available for those, but less technologically advanced so for example night vision equipment would have been hard to come by and less efficient, making it probably rather easy to filter small parties on foot or horseback across the border under cover of darkness (especially given the ruggedness of the terrain).
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