A slap in the face from the loudspeaker: Finland's tourist hotspots welcome Russians with the Ukrainian national anthem
Created: 08/17/2022, 10:10 am
By: Florian Naumann
Tourists at the Imatra dam - the Ukrainian national anthem has been heard here every day since the end of July when the locks open.
© Alessandra Rampazzo/AFP
Finland wants to restrict visas for Russians – or stop them immediately.
It is unclear whether this will have an effect.
But tourist hotspots are already taking gentle measures.
Helsinki/Imatra – Olaf Scholz and his Finnish counterpart Sanna Marin clashed on Monday over the question of whether Russian citizens should be denied access to the EU.
She doesn't think it's right that Russian citizens can "go sightseeing while Russia is killing people in Ukraine" as tourists, Marin said.
Scholz disagreed.
"It's not the war of the Russian people, it's Putin's war," stressed the Chancellor.
The EU states could still have something to nibble on this sensitive issue.
Tourist hotspots in Finland, popular with Russian guests, have already taken their own measures to show their opposition to the invasion.
Some of these are hard to ignore.
Ukraine war: Finnish tourist hotspots confront Russians - acoustically
One of these places is the huge dam in the border town of Imatra, which is also popular among Russians as a day trip destination.
Once a day during the tourist season, the sluices on the Vuoksi River in south-east Finland open and the dammed stream to generate electricity pours into a narrow granite gorge.
To accompany this spectacle, a work by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius has so far been heard from loudspeakers: "Es kocht der Strom".
Now the onlookers get to hear something else, as reported by the TV station Euronews, among others.
A melody by Mychajlo Werbyzkyj can be heard: the Ukrainian national anthem.
Imatra is not alone with this trick.
Lappeenranta, a good 35 kilometers away, also plays the national anthem of Ukraine to its Russian guests.
Every evening, the town hall is the scene of the performance.
The location was not chosen at random: the large shopping center Kauppakeskus Galleria is in the immediate vicinity.
Shopping in the EU country is a main travel reason for many guests from Russia.
"The aim is to express strong support for Ukraine and to condemn the war of aggression," Lappeenranta Mayor Kimmo Jarva told AFP.
Russia's tourists in Finland: back and forth at the border - many apparently do not need a visa
A curiosity on the side: Tourist resorts like Imatra haven't factored in larger numbers of Russian tourists for so long.
Finland's corona restrictions on the EU's external border only fell on July 1st.
On July 4, Russia followed suit with the exit rules.
According to a report by the Finnish broadcaster YLE, many eastern Finnish cities had deliberately avoided advertising in Russia - especially in view of the Ukraine war.
According to the broadcaster, around 1,000 Russian visa applications are currently being processed every day.
Although the Russian-Finnish border is repeatedly the subject of more or less harsh threats from the Kremlin.
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Soon the number of travelers from Russia could decrease again.
Despite disagreements with Scholz and the EU, Finland tightened visa rules on Tuesday (17 August).
"We will limit the number of approved applications to a tenth of the current level," Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told YLE.
While Finland has tried to help Ukrainian refugees, the number of Russian tourists in the country has recently been high, Haavisto said.
"That was difficult for many Finns to accept."
However, it is not to be expected that tourism from Russia will come to a standstill as a result.
The Finnish portal hbl.fi
, for example, reported
in mid-July on thousands of people entering the country from the neighboring country alone with a long-distance bus route operated by the Estonian provider Lux Express between St. Petersburg and Helsinki.
Apparently, many of those who arrive do not need visas for the trip: "Most of those who travel on these buses are people with dual citizenship or who own real estate in the EU," wrote the website.
(
AFP/fn
)
