Pulitzer Center Story Covering Estonian Border With Russia Wins VQR Award

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“The Hottest Border,” a Pulitzer Center-supported story by Marzio Mian, won the 2025 Staige D. Blackford Prize for Nonfiction from the Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR).

Mian documented his time on Estonia’s eastern border, where tensions with Russia have intensified. The piece explored Estonia’s precarious position as a potential zone for Russia to challenge NATO. Along with photojournalist Alessandro Cosmelli, Mian captured the lives of everyday Estonians and their fears of Russian invasion. He spoke to army guards stationed at the border, civilians in remote villages, and military intelligence personnel about their perspectives on the conflict.

VQR published the story in its “Summer 2025” issue, with an introduction that described it as “a story whose images and prose move the sensory details of this Eastern European front closer with all its tension and even flashes of macabre humor.”

Mian originally wrote the piece in Italian, before Elettra Pauletto translated it into English. Mian’s book Volga Blues: A Journey into the Heart of Russia, continues his documentation of Russian conflicts, featuring photographs by Cosmelli and translation by Pauletto. The book was published in January 2026.

The prize, named after late VQR editor Staige D. Blackford, honors the best nonfiction writing published in the magazine that year, and includes a monetary award of $1,000. The prize was given along with the Emily Clark Balch Prizes for fiction and poetry.

Read more about Mian and Cosmelli’s project, On the Hottest European Border.