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Okay, i had thought the relations to have been frosty long before the war.
So was it common for people to travel as tourists to Russia or from Russia to Finland?
Yeah, since we have a long history of having been part of the Russian empire. Sweden and Russia warred over our land for centuries. There are a lot of various Finnic tribes within the borders of modern Russia, such as the Mari, the Ingrians and the Karelians. Just to name a few. Before Russia really ramped up their cultural “genocide” (not sure what the word is where they suffocate the cultures and force the languages and traditions not be practiced at threat of jail or such, and moving native Russians to their lands while forcefully spreading the locals across the other lands to be alone and not among their own culture) there were very colorful and lively Finnic traditions quite far, even into Siberia, and with a shared language roots the communication was easy, and as such, trading. It wasn’t until Russia started snuffing out all these other cultures and their members, that the borders and differences became so stark. Before that, it was almost as if they were Finnic lands, though under Russian rule. Modern day Finland was under the same rule at times, too, so in a sense it was just internal movement at those points of time, not even crossing any borders.
It’s a fairly modern and recent development that the differences have become so stark and deep. We only have to look back a couple of centuries and the Finnic tribes across these lands, deep into modern day Russia even, were strong and alive. What we call Russia today, or Finland today, are very recent things. Even Russia has changed by the way of Russification or just suffocating and killing other cultures from its lands, from just what it was a century ago.
But during the Soviet rule, and after it too for a while, it was very common to travel as tourists between us and them. We were very common tourist location, and in the Eastern Finland all the shops had a lot of extra cheese and stuff because so many Russians just on a normal day came to visit and buy the cheese and whatnot. Same went for Russia. The “Suomettuminen” (something probably like Finnification or similar in English, not sure) was a big part of the post-war Finland and USSR, and that meant close relations, even if not really wanted or equal in balances.
Even in the 2020 you read a lot about big Russian money coming into Finland in the form of them buying up vacation places, even whole islands and whatnot. It’s been a bit chilly between us always, even more so after 2014, but it never stopped the somewhat close exchanges of stuff and people. I think 2022 was the final nail, the turning point there. Not sure we ever get back to that type of relation. And honestly, don’t think many want that either. Our relations have always been about self-preservation and not true will to be friendly.
But that is true for all of Europe, and here I’m just giving some tidbits less known to foreigners, there are similar things in every modern day nation and region, so it’s not really useful to know or to compare.
I was originally just commenting on the present contrast there. Not thinking too deep about it.