Hopes and worries at the Russian-Finnish border
Statistics show that around 40 000 Russians escaped through Finland from the day that President Putin declared the mobilization and during the nine days that followed until the border closed. I am on my way to Karelia, a region along the southern part of the Finnish-Russian border where some of the most intense battles between two countries took place during the Second World War. As I write this October 2022, the atmosphere around the border is tense, the relations between the two countries are colder than in a long time, and people on either side of the border have difficulties even seeing each other. That, however, has not always been the case...