Ukrainian pickers staying to wait for lingonberries to ripen

Disappointed by poor crop and empty promises, pickers buy car to help business

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A group of Ukrainians recruited to pick wild berries in Finnish Lapland are selling berries that they have picked to vendors at the open market in Rovaniemi.
      "We are getting four euros a kilo for cleaned berries", says Andrii Shykov, a student of economics from Kiev. On Monday they took a few boxes of berries to the market.
     
Five Ukrainians left for home during the weekend from the old Tiainen village school where they have been housed, after their parents paid for their return trip. There are still 55 young Ukrainians left. "A few are still leaving, but many are waiting for the lingonberry crop to ripen", Shykov says.
      The Ukrainians are in an awkward predicament, as the funds that many of them had set aside for the trip back home have been spent on daily necessities, after a disappointing year for wild berries.
      Shykov and his friends criticise the travel agency in Kiev, the agency’s Espoo- based Finnish partner which went bankrupt in late July, and Armas Kristo, an entrepreneur in Pello who submitted the invitations that allowed the group to get visas.
      "There was no transport from Rovaniemi to our lodgings, nobody was there to guide us, and we didn’t have a car", Shykov explains.
      Members of the group later bought a used car to go to places to pick berries and to sell what they get.
     
Armas Kristo confirms that there was no written contract between himself and the pickers that he recruited to Pello and Rovaniemi. "We simply buy the berries from them".
      Some of the pickers in Rovaniemi and Pello have gone back home.
      "Those who are dissatisfied have gone. Those who have stayed here have come to pick berries, and that is important for us", Kristo says.
      He adds that the Ukrainians have picked more berries in recent days than they did before. However, the situation is not as good as in previous years. Shykov complains that the pickers were not warned of the poor berry crop.
     
Meanwhile, pickers recruited from Thailand to Savukoski in the northeast of Lapland by the Ostrobothnian company Riitan Herkku have a return tickets, says the company’s CEO Jan-Erik Gustafsson He emphasises the responsibility taken by the company for the pickers.
      The Thai pickers expect to stay in Finland until early October, to get the lingonberry crop picked. The berry situation has been a disappointment in the Savukoski area as well.
      "We pay two euros a kilo. People can earn good money even if they pick a smaller amount", Gustafsson says.
      It rained in Savukoski in Sunday night and Monday morning. Some of the Ukrainians plan to buy a used van in Rovaniemi to examine the situation in Savukoski.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Foreign berry-pickers put on spot by empty promises and poor crop in Lapland (4.8.2006)
  Thai berry-pickers are welcome in Finnish Lapland (1.8.2006)
  Thai berry pickers earn money in Finnish Lapland (5.8.2005)

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