The people of St. Petersburg still consider Finns to be friendly people, even though Finland restricts the application of tourist visas. Many hope that the restrictions will remain temporary.
20:22•Updated 20:28
A travel agency entrepreneur from St. Petersburg Marija Bantysheva according to the situation is now very difficult.
Finland has announced that it will limit the acceptance of tourist visa applications from September. Our film crew interviewed Russians in St. Petersburg, from where it has been convenient to travel to Finland.
Priority is given to visas applied for work, family and study purposes. From September, visa applications will be processed in 500 days and only one hundred of them would be tourist visas.
Marija Bantyševa considers the number to be very small. He reminds that St. Petersburg alone is a city of five million people. The restrictions hit the tourism industry on both sides of the border.
– Buses and shops in Lappeenranta depend on this. Everything is connected to each other, Bantyševa enumerates.
Bantyševa, who runs an agency specializing in Finnish travel, starts to tear up in the middle of the interview when she talks about her client.
This has not obtained a visa to travel to the United States to see his family who lives there because the American consulate is closed. The family bought plane tickets to Helsinki, but now getting a visa for Finland also seems uncertain.
Bantyševa feels that an iron curtain is now descending in front of the Russians.
– In the current situation, citizens of the Russian Federation do not have the opportunity to travel abroad, because other countries also issue very few visas, he says.
Bantyševa admits that some people have used Finland as a transit country. Plane tickets through Istanbul cost three times more than from Finland, he describes.
Prime minister Sanna Marini (sd.) says it is not fair that Russians can travel in Europe as tourists at the same time as Russia is waging a brutal war in Ukraine.
– On the other hand, he is right. The situation is difficult now, and people don’t always understand it, Bantyševa says.
On the other hand, Bantyševa says that ordinary citizens are not as much to blame for Russia’s current situation as Finns think.
The people of St. Petersburg: ordinary people suffer
He also arranges his words Alexander Grits, who went to the visa center to submit the fingerprints required for the application. Marin is partly right and partly wrong. Grits is not in favor of closing borders.
– However, there are human rights: a person must be allowed to move regardless of the political situation.
Grits first plans to travel to meet his old friends in Finland. Later, he plans to travel to see his wife, who is in another EU country. The increase in restrictions is worrying.
– Of course, my wife and I are watching the matter tensely. We are concerned. The wife is waiting, we haven’t seen each other in three months. We have fears if suddenly it doesn’t work out.
The residents of St. Petersburg we interviewed do not like to take a clear position on politics. Russia’s war against Ukraine is a hot topic.
At the same time, people have the experience that they cannot influence politics, that politics is something above citizens.
An analogy to a family dispute: there are always two to blame
St. Petersburg Roma says that he often traveled to Finland before the corona pandemic to buy dairy products. Finland is a peaceful and quiet country, visiting there calms the stress caused by the busy St. Petersburg life.
Roman says that both Russians and Finns suffer from the situation. Southern Finland has lost its income due to the lack of Russian tourists.
– Basically, we suffer from the mistakes of the country’s leaders. I’m not naming specific people. As in family conflicts, the psychologist always says that there are two to blame. Politicians have not succeeded and ordinary people have become hostages.
He points out that at gas stations near the Finnish border, you mostly see cars with Finnish license plates.
Russians assure friendship
The residents of St. Petersburg we interviewed do not feel that they have been ostracized or rejected while moving around in Finland.
Like the others interviewed, Aleksandr Grits emphasizes friendly relations with Finns.
– We want to be friends with Finns regardless of political situations. Anyway, I want to. I am a peace-loving person, says Grits.
He says the same Sergei Sopovwho submitted a visa application to travel to meet friends and go shopping.
– We have many friends in Finland who visit here and we visit them.
He hoped that Finland would not make it difficult to get a visa.
– It’s politics. Everything is still going well.
As a Russian citizen, “I don’t like it”
Been to Finland and Sweden numerous times Valeri Katjuhin is quite calm about making it difficult to obtain a visa in Finland.
– This is temporary. It’s hard to say. I’m a doctor and I can’t comment on such things. Personally, as a citizen of Russia, it does not please me.
Otherwise, he trusts Putin’s narrative: Russia is fighting fascism in Ukraine, and the information embargo prevents the citizens of Western countries from seeing it. So he wonders why Finland supports fascism in Ukraine.
– I didn’t like the fact that grants for Ukraine are being collected in Finnish shops. I was not pleased that the square in front of the Russian embassy is named after Ukrainian heroes, says Katjuhin, apparently referring to Stockholm’s decision to name the square in front of the embassy Free Ukraine Square.
– We are neighbors. We have to live in peace and friendship, says Katjuhin.
At the same time, in another neighbor, Ukraine, Russia’s all-consuming war of aggression continues.
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