North Karelia force says fence dividing Finland and Russia is no Berlin Wall – but it is now a key geopolitical faultline
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mong the serene lakes, thick forest and summer houses of North Karelia’s border zone, the line between Finland and Russia is almost invisible. Walking along the border path in Meriinaho, part of the Finnish border guard station of Ilomantsi, we are closer to St Petersburg than to Helsinki. This is the most easterly point of the continental European Union.
Every now and then a discreet pair of matching striped fibreglass posts pop up from the blueberry patches on either side of the frontier. One is painted blue and white to indicate Finland, the other green and red to mark Russia.
Despite generations of tensions and several wars, until recently these sparsely planted bollards – plus surveillance by Finnish and Russian border guards – were deemed sufficient to demarcate the neighbours. But the mood on both sides of the 830-mile (1,340km) frontier, now also a critical Nato border, is changing fast.
