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Finns guard the green border at Imatra in the southeast. Finland and Russia touch each other over a length of 1340 kilometers. NATO’s eastern flank will soon be here.
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⫻ Lauri Heino/Picturedesk.com
A deserted frontier. A city breaking away from its Russian partners. And a 95-year-old man who is regaining his memory of the Winter War again. Scenes from Finland, where they are currently converting to NATO.
Otto Juusela can see Russia from his workplace. And sometimes he can smell it too. “There’s a wood processing plant over there. When the wind blows in the right direction, the smell comes here.” But you don’t need to have tried it “Smells bad.”
Where he wants to go: There are border points separated by a no man’s land several kilometers wide. And then there’s the transition here in Imatra, in southeastern Finland. As you get closer, factory chimneys in the Russian border town of Svetogorsk tower above the Finnish treetops. “Or that building over there.” Juusela points to a blue house a few hundred meters away. “Already in Russia.”
The green border, the restricted area, the forest are also not crossed by high fences. There are barriers here and there, but they are only intended to limit the transnational crossing of animals. Russian border guards sometimes reported that a Finnish hunter’s dog had entered their federation. “Three or four times in the summer” this would happen.
So this is a story. She tells about “normal” everyday life, where they deliver dogs instead of agents and cooperate “a lot”.