More than 400 thousand Russians crossed the Russian-Finnish border over the New Year's holidays

For pre-holiday and holiday days, from December 27 to January 9, traffic on the border of Russia and Finland grew by 5,5%. In general, according to the Finnish border guard, about 412 thousand border crossings were registered for two weeks at the checkpoints Torfyanovka (Vaalimaa), Brusnichnoye (Nuyamaa), Svetogorsk (Imatra) and Vainikkala,. Most Russians preferred Helsinki and Lappeenranta.

Most (43 thousand) of entries from Russia to Finland was recorded on January 3. On this day, 16,5 thousand people crossed the border through Torfyanovka, 12 thousand crossed Brusnichnoye, and 10 thousand tourists through Svetogorsk.

3,9 thousand passengers used trains to Finland for New Year's days. In total, passenger traffic at the railway checkpoint grew by 17,5% for the holiday weekend.

The vast majority of tourists are residents of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. The Consulate General of Finland reported that it issued 19% more visas in St. Petersburg last year than in 2018. According to the agency, in January-December 2019, more than 647 thousand visa applications were accepted for consideration. More than 99% of the issued visas were multiple.

This means that the new requirements, according to which to obtain a Finnish visa from August 1, 2019, Russians must provide a document on financial viability, did not lead to an increase in the number of visa refusals.