Anton Salonen's mother does not dare to return to Finland
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The Russian mother at the centre of the child abduction case that has emerged between Finland and the Russian Federation gives an assurance that she had no intention of kidnapping the child from Finland to Russia.
Rimma Salonen, the mother of five-year-old Anton, left for Russia in March 2008, in her own words only on a vacation trip.
"In fact I never really decided to move to Russia. The situation changed when I heard that I was regarded as a criminal in Finland and that I could end up going to jail. Hence I decided to stay here in Russia and give the child a Russian upbringing. I am Russian, after all”, Rimma Salonen explains.
The mother settled with her young son in the small town of Balakhna on the Volga River in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where she found work at the kindergarten attended by her child.
Mother and boy lived in Russia for just over a year before the child's father Paavo Salonen - who had received an earlier custody judgement from a Tampere court - tracked them down.
This time the father took the child to Finland with him, hidden in the back of a car driven by a Finnish consular official.
Now the mother dare not herself come back to Finland for fear of the possible consequences.
The mother is stunned at the child’s having been taken to Finland and cannot imagine that the action could be in any way justified in terms of the boy's interests.
“It is illegal to take a child across the border in this way! And how might the child feel, when he does not speak Finnish and his father does not speak Russian?” wonders Rimma Salonen.
"As a mother I can say that it is very sad to see that everyone in Finland has stood behind the father in this matter, when he is the one who has committed a crime here.”
According to the mother, Anton had already forgotten his father altogether, and did not miss him at all.
The father says the direct opposite - according to his statements, the boy asked after his father and missed him.
“I nevertheless believe that my son will come back to me. My support group will do everything they can to help me”, says Rimma Salonen, who allegedly took the child to Russia in the first place on forged documents.
Rimma Salonen does not know precisely what steps she is going to take.
A lawyer is preparing a court action, and a demand has been placed with the Russian legal authorities for charges to be levelled of premeditated abduction of a child.
In the little town of Balakhna, the Salonen story is known to many, and Rimma Salonen’s colleagues at the kindergarten back her up.
“A lot has been said about this case on TV and radio, so a good many people know about it. Here on our side the view is that the child should be with his mother. The father should answer for his actions in a court of law”, says Rimma Salonen’s immediate superior, the manager of the kindergarten Natalia Shatonova.
The boy is a Finnish citizen by birth and custody was awarded to the father by the Tampere District Court, prior to the mother's actions in taking the child to Russia.
The sad affair of a marriage breakdown and child custody dispute flaring into a minor international incident has divided opinions within the Russian media, with some siding with the mother and calling for charges against Paavo Salonen and those who assisted him.
Meanwhile others note that the mother had no right to change the child's nationality without the formal approval of his father, and that in law Paavo Salonen is the child's legal guardian.
A not-dissimilar case in Finland some years ago caused equally strident reactions for and against over the nationality and custody of two boys born to an American father and a Finnish mother.
The boys were eventually returned to their father, under the terms of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
More on this subject:
 Something had to be done, says diplomat who brought abducted boy back to Finland
Russia sends diplomatic note over Anton Salonen incident
Previously in HS International Edition:
Espoo boys go home - to Greenville - for Christmas (4.1.2005)
Helsingin Sanomat
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