Russian wives content to live in Tohmajärvi
Busy border crossing enlivens Finland’s most Russian municipality
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A solitary elderly woman pulls a sled on the main road of the village. Few others are to be seen.
Kyökin puolella is a cafeteria frequented by the unemployed, nearby is a discount store, and a stone’s throw away is a supermarket, as well as a hamburger restaurant and a take-away pizza restaurant.
This is Tohmajärvi in North Karelia. It is not much different from most remote rural communities in Finland - except...
Next to the R-Kiosk there is a small shop selling tools and visas - under the same roof.
Visas to Russia are in high demand because about 20 kilometres from the village is the Niirala border crossing station, which is open 24 hours a day.
Standing behind the counter of the visa shop is a woman who speaks Karelian dialect with a Russian accent.
Tohmajärvi has become the most Russian municipality in Finland, thanks to people who have moved there from the other side of the border. Three per cent of the 5,200 residents of Tohmajärvi speak Russian as their native language.
Many of them are women who are married to Finns. They work in local shops, catering to an international clientele.
Last year nearly 400,000 Russians who used the Niirala crossing passed through the community.
The municipality has even tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade government officials to allow them to replace Swedish, which is mandatory in Finnish schools as the second official language, with Russian.
Some of the women have moved from behind the counter to management positions in the shops.
Valentina Puustinen, managing director of the café-restaurant Rajapysäkki (“Border Stop”) near the Niirala border crossing, sends a telefax from her office. Although she appears busy, she finds the time to answer a journalist’s questions.
Puustinen has run the café for a year along with another local Russian woman. Now is a slow time - between the beginning of the year and the summer.
Puustinen goes behind the counter for a photograph, to sell a cup of coffee to a customer, Erkki Tarvainen, a local lorry driver, who also happens to have a Russian wife.
How have things worked out?
“It’s all right, considering that we’ve been married since 1995", Tarvainen says.
The two have a son, who is in the second grade of school. Tarvainen says that he studied Russian at a very early stage, so that his wife and her two daughters would find it easier to move to Finland.
Was it hard to learn the language?
“No, it wasn’t.”
What is it like to have a Russian woman as a wife?
“Well, they are a bit temperamental.”
While the Russian influence stimulates Tohmajärvi somewhat, the municipality is struggling with the same issues that face other small remote communities: an ageing and diminishing population.
But a busy border crossing is a boon to Tohmajärvi.
Last year a total of 875,000 people crossed the border. The Border Guard, Finnish Customs, and logistics companies have brought 250 jobs to the municipality.
And how are Russian residents treated in Tohmajärvi?
Very well, says Zulfija Kinnunen, who sells agricultural machinery at a hardware store near the village.
“If it had been difficult, I would have gone back”, she says.
What do the natives say? Do the Russians take the men from local women?
“Not any more”, says Päivi Mikkonen, who works at the R-Kiosk.
In years past there were some divorces that resulted from them. The local muses on the matter for a while before voicing her views on the local Russians.
“It has become necessary to soften one’s opinions”, she says.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 23.3.2009 - TODAY |
 Russian wives content to live in Tohmajärvi |
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