Russia to Finland Border Crossing

We reached the border between Russia and Finland after only a few hours journey. Around two hours later almost everyone in the bus had gone through the Russian and Finland border process, but one woman in our vehicle had been detained.

There was a noticeable rise in tension within the bus. People looked at each other with nervous energy and the bus conductor would walk up the aisle and whisper to people, his eyes glancing around suspiciously. Soon the detained woman returned to the bus, being escorted by a Finnish customs officer in uniform. As the woman stepped onto the vehicle the noise level dropped and everyone watched in silence as she picked up her bags from her seat and was marched back across the border.

Once the woman had left, the bus was permitted to leave. The engine started and the tension suddenly burst. Amid a flurry of movement the bus conductor whipped out a big brown sack and worked his way up the aisle. Passengers everywhere began pulling out hidden bottles of vodka, packets of cigarettes and other smuggled items, depositing them in the sack as he shuffled past. Even a little old lady was in on the action, producing a bottle of vodka from her handbag. It would seem that our bus was more smuggling vessel than human transportation device, and our conductor was the Del Boy Trotter of the Russian to Finland border crossing.

When we arrived in Helsinki our experience was slightly surreal. We had been travelling overnight from 9.30pm to 5am so Jen, Nikki and I had not had much sleep. The bus suddenly pulled up to the side of the road, turned off its lights and everyone seemed to go to bed. Even Del Boy started to snore. We were not sure if we were in Helsinki, we were not sure why the bus had stopped and we were not sure how long we would have to wait. We failed to have any of these questions answered because we were all tired, we simply went to sleep slightly confused.

Two hours later the lights of the bus went on, everyone woke up and exited the vehicle. It turned out we were in Helsinki.

And Helsinki was great.

We checked into the hostel and headed straight into town. We found an old indoor market and started our Finland experience by tucking into some juicy Reindeer. I felt slightly strange eating Rudolf, and I felt bad that Santa will be going round in circles now that he is minus an engine, but it sure was tasty!

Later that night we went to see an ice hockey game, because that it what Finnish people do. The home team unfortunately lost the match, but the atmosphere was amazing.

The rest of our time in the city we explored the shops and side streets. Amazed to be somewhere that uses English in everyday life. We also booked our onward journey to Sweden, on a cruise ship, which should be fun!

I will be sad to leave Helsinki, it is certainly not the most exciting place in the world, it has awful weather and less than 6 hours of daylight. But the people were friendly and for our short visit we certainly enjoyed ourselves.

bx

(ps photos to be added soon when i sort out computer issues)