Most of the time, countries that border each other are similar to each other. However, there are a few notable borders in Europe that break this trend. According to the Country Similarity Index, Russia and Azerbaijan are the least similar countries that border each other. Their demographics, culture, governments, infrastructure, and geography are extremely different. In fact, the three least similar pairs of bordering European countries involve Russia.
Russia is the world’s largest country, spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, with diverse climates and a variety of landscapes including plains, mountains, and extensive coastlines. Azerbaijan is a landlocked country to the south of Russia. It has a subtropical, semi-arid climate. Azerbaijan’s population density is ten times less than Russia’s population density.
Although both countries used to be part of the Soviet Union, the cultures of Russia and Azerbaijan are significantly different. Russia is predominately Christian, while Azerbaijan is predominately Muslim. As a result, alcohol is extremely less often consumed in Azerbaijan, due to religious beliefs. In addition, their languages are unrelated since they are not part of the same language family. Furthermore, they do not use the same writing system as Azeri uses the Latin alphabet, unlike Russian.
