Les gens de Vilnius l’appellent « l’appendice » ou « la péninsule ». Sur place, on préfère dire « la pipe de Staline ». Situé à 70 kilomètres au sud de la capitale lituanienne, le parc de Dieveniškes est une petite enclave en territoire biélorusse. La directrice du lycée technique du principal bourg, Ilona Sediene, entretient la mémoire de cette région occupée tour à tour par les Scandinaves, les Polonais, l’Empire russe, les nazis, puis les Soviétiques. Elle dévoile volontiers l’origine de son étonnant surnom. « Lors d’une réunion à Moscou pour dessiner les frontières de la région, Staline aurait posé sa pipe sur la carte. Personne n’ayant osé la déplacer, la ligne de démarcation a pris ici une forme arrondie. »

Завтрак туриста

ある男が森の中で熊に出くわした。熊はさっそく男に質問する。
「お前さん、何者だい？」
「私は、旅行者ですが」
「いや、旅行者はこの俺様だ。お前さんは、旅行者の朝食だよ」

A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a desert island. One can only imagine what sort of play date went awry to land them there. Anyway, they’re hungry. Like, desert island hungry. And then a can of soup washes ashore. Progresso Reduced Sodium Chicken Noodle, let’s say. Which is perfect, because the physicist can’t have much salt, and the chemist doesn’t eat red meat.
But, famished as they are, our three professionals have no way to open the can. So they put their brains to the problem. The physicist says “We could drop it from the top of that tree over there until it breaks open.” And the chemist says “We could build a fire and sit the can in the flames until it bursts open.”
Those two squabble a bit, until the economist says “No, no, no. Come on, guys, you’d lose most of the soup. Let’s just assume a can opener.”
You can’t just assume a can opener and have it appear, obviously. But economists regularly rely on analogous assumptions of conditions that don’t actually exist in the real world. This is one of the fundamental ways in which economics differs from the hard sciences, even though economists often seek to present their views with the certainty of, say, a physicist or chemist.