Ciao! Ho visto diversi video sulle conseguenze della chiusura completa del confine dal novembre 2023. Lo trovo interessante: sono le conseguenze della guerra a cui molti non pensano. Almeno qui in Danimarca, da dove vengo.
A quanto ho capito, è stato chiuso perché la Russia ha utilizzato i migranti come armi, inviando/incanalando gli immigrati oltre il confine (anche se la Russia lo nega). Come abbiamo visto fare in Bielorussia.
Alcune di queste città, come Imatra, vedevano molti turisti russi. Spendono un sacco di soldi qui. Ma ora se ne sono andati, così come i loro soldi. Di conseguenza, a quanto ho capito, i negozi chiudono.
Sono un fotoreporter danese. Qui non ne sentiamo parlare molto. Per noi è facile dire “certo che dovrebbero chiudere quel confine!” – ma non abbiamo mai avuto la Russia come vicino.
Qualcuno ha input/intuizioni su questo argomento? Le città di confine e la vita qui dopo la chiusura. Altre conseguenze, come forse la famiglia/gli amici che non possono vedersi?
Qualcuno vive in una città come Imatra? Che può confermare o approfondire la situazione?
O forse pensieri sulla chiusura del confine in generale.
Aspetto vostri approfondimenti!!!
https://i.redd.it/7jtlkrukcujg1.jpeg
di AutomaticDay3059
8 commenti
Russians also used to spend money inland, but it was mainly the oligarchs.
I live in Kajaani, near the border, but not a border town. We used to have Russians shopping here and us Finns buying cheap gasoline from there. It was a symbiotic relationship. Now we don’t get any Russians here and the economy has suffered.
Ruck Fussia!
The whole Finlands’ GDP benefitted about 10% from Russian trade/travel/ect. Now take that away and you got problems in your economy.
Absolutely some damage has been caused but the border closing was not really up to Finland as Russia used it as a tool to damage Finland. The damage they would have been able to cause surpasses the damage closing has caused.
First of all, there is no proof that migrants were orchestrated. It is possible, but not certain.
What is certain is that Russia stopped checking travellers documents on the way to the border. There is no obligation or any document saying that Russia must perform the checks. I mean documents that allow entering EU. Russia still checks internal documents.
For instance, Finland has never checked documents for entering Russia they only check their internal documents, the same now does Russia.
It’s obviously not great for a town like Imatra. Nationwide, there’s overwhelming support for the closure of the border.
I think the saddest consequences are probably for the numerous Finns of Russian descent who have family in Russia. And can also be problematic for e.g. many of Russian middle class from St. Petersburg, Viborg or other nearby towns, who sometimes have vacation homes in Finland. It hasn’t been unusual for Russians to place a lot of their life savings in a Finnish property, due to our strong legal protections for private property.
I must admit I went to check your profile to verify the “Danish photojournalist” claim. This sub has seen numerous extremely dubious posts where people claim to be “just curious” about topics like the border but also NATO membership, support for Ukraine, etc.
Yep, Russia using 3rd country migrants/asylym seekers in 2023 caused Finland to close the border. Or, that was the final straw at least.
Cities/towns next to Russian border have suffered economically from the closure. Important to note though that it didn’t start in 2023 when border was closed – there was different covid restrictions in tourism between 2020-2022. And then Finland limited visas to Russian tourists in 2022. So the situation in Finland-Russia border has been abnormal since 2020.
About tourism, in eastern Finland Russians have been large group. This is true. Tourism to Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, hasn’t suffered, because there’s been plenty of people coming from all around. In Lapland, number of foreign tourists has been breaking records lately.
So there has been effect for sure, in eastern Finland especially, in tourism sector there and places like Imatra. Not anything that disastrous, but clearly visible. In other places in Finland, no effect really, and in Lapland tourism is booming.
There hasn’t really been discussion about opening of the border at all. Closing the border has a strong popular support. I don’t opening it is happening in the middle of Ukraine war. And there is a risk that tensions won’t decrease even after that (after a some sort of peace deal), if Russia continues to use different hybrid operations or pressure. Although I expect that relations return to cool-neutral after that, and border would be opened to traffic again.