Eastern border | The traffic on the eastern border was revolutionized in an instant – HS followed the traffic at the Niirala border station

Lake Tohmajärvi

Transport the eastern border is quiet late in the afternoon on Thursday in Värtsilä, North Karelia.

Cars rarely drive across the border at the Niirala border inspection station. They come from Russia to Finland, and individual cars also tend to arrive from Finland to Russia towards evening.

The majority of the cars have Finnish license plates, but even many of them have people who speak Russian.

in Finland are living Below and Olga are coming from Petrozavodsk, where they have been staying with their children and grandchildren. The women do not want to tell their last names and do not appear in the photo.

The women talk cheerfully and in fairly good Finnish about meetings with relatives, but questions about the war and Russia’s business proposals make them serious in no time.

It’s hard, both sigh and search for the right words.

Both Alla’s and Olga’s grown-up sons in their forties live in Petrozavodsk. They have not been able to be called up for military service.

“Maybe it won’t happen, because neither of them has been in the army,” says Alla.

Women are still worried. According to Alla, the war is visible in Petrozavodsk through the news, but the lives of families are filled with ordinary everyday worries.

“I didn’t ask their opinion [sodasta]”, he tells.

In Alla’s opinion, ordinary people cannot influence the situation other than by hoping that the war will be over quickly.

“Everyone is waiting for peace,” says Olga as well, before the two continue their journey home towards Kajaan.

“Our generation has been brought up to it. Peace, peace, peace.”

On the eastern border the visits of Finns living in Russia to shop or refuel are few and far between, estimates the cafe owner Jaana Partanen.

She runs the Cafe Elja lunch cafe with her husband near the Niirala border crossing. The couple also discusses these issues with their clients when they exchange information.

According to Partanen, the traffic on the eastern border picked up a bit after the corona restrictions were lifted in July, but the events of the fall quieted it down again. According to Partanen, in Russia, for example, there are “just a handful” of refuelers.

“Over the course of a month, traffic has decreased. When the situation is so unstable, even those who are in between [koronarajoitusten jälkeen] those who have been there, don’t go anymore, when you don’t know what that Russian brother will come up with. It’s really quiet,” says Partanen.

September at the end, Finland made a principled decision to close the border to Russian tourists. Russians still get to Finland for special reasons.

Currently, around 450–700 people pass through the Niirala border inspection station per day, slightly more on weekends, says the shift manager of the border inspection station Teemu Hirvonen.

According to Hirvonen, the traffic volumes are approximately the same as at the time of the corona restrictions.

In July, after the corona restrictions were lifted, border traffic picked up for a while. Between July and September, approximately 1,200 people crossed the border in Niirala per day. Before the corona era, there were approximately 3,000–4,000 border crossers per day.

Hirvosen according to recently, about 30–40 percent of those crossing the border have been Russian. Dual citizens of Finland and Russia are registered among Finns at the border.

The majority of Russians who come to Finland have their close relatives living in Finland, so they come to the country based on a family relationship.

“Other reasons are individual cases,” says Hirvonen.

Niiralan the head of the border inspection station Eetu Multanen says that in the week after Finland’s decision in principle, some decisions had to be made at the border about denying entry to the country, because not all Russians trying to cross the border had grounds for entry.

According to Multanen, now the information about the entry requirements has spread and people who have the right entry requirements are trying to come to Finland. Decisions to deny entry to the country are rarely made anymore.

This week, the Finnish Immigration Service said that those left by Russians in Finland asylum applications the number has increased since the launch of the movement announced by Russia. The Border Guard said that also those who applied for temporary protection the number of Ukrainians on the eastern border has grown since the launch of the Russian business.

According to Eetu Multanen, it has been calm in Niirala regarding these as well. According to him, individual asylum seekers and individual Ukrainians seeking temporary protection have crossed the border in Niirala. Neither of them have come daily.

According to Multanen, the cooperation with the Russian border authorities has also been smooth.

“We focus on matters of cross-border traffic,” says Multanen.

“We are constantly monitoring the development of the situation, and we act accordingly. At the moment it is calm, but we know that situations can change quickly. We are also preparing for that.”