Re: the difference between Latvia and Lithuania

Vladimir Makarenko wrote:
Valtsu wrote:
Vladimir Makarenko wrote:

How in the world Finland got Russian immigration? Are all the people amnistied illegals?

VM.

Hardly ;-)

There have been several waves of Russian immigration.

Actually quite few came during the century of Velikoe Knyazhestvo Finlyandskoye because of the border that existed all the time. Some businessmen did come, for example Gospodin Sinebrychoff more than 150 years ago, who created the Koff beer, still one of the biggest brands here. I guess more Finns moved to Russia than vv. St Petersburg was a lucrative destination for skilled labour and merchants.

After the revolution there was a big wave of emigrees from Russia, but Finland was mainly a transit country. A few thousand stayed. Many changed their names to be more finnic, and the in general the Russians kept low profile, but were active in their own clubs and other organisations.

After ww2 Russians, who had lived for centuries in the Karelian areas ceded to the USSR (monks in Valaam and Konevits monasteries, the residents of Kyyrölä village on the Karelian Isthmus, Russian residents of Vyborg and Terijoki (present day Zelenogorsk) totalling a few thousand relocated with the Finnish population to other Finnish areas.

In the 1980-s during the times of president Koivisto started the "returnado" traffic, Ingrian Finns returning to Finland. These were mainly people, whose ancestors had emigrated to Ingria (areas around St
Petersburg) when our sovereign the king of Sweden wanted to increase his presence eastwards starting from the 17th century. During ww2 the Germans relocated these people to Finland from the areas they occupied and according to the Paris Peace Protocol after ww2 (most) of them were forced to return to the USSR. These people could immigrate to Finland if they could prove that their name or at least the name of one grandparent could be found in the Lutheran church records kept untill Stalin came to power. This meant that most of the returnés spuses and offspring included could not speak a word of Finnish.

After the downfall of USSR there are also other sorts of immigrants. My neighbour is specialist from Novosibirsk working for Nokia, and he is not the only one of his kind.

In all there are some 50-75 thousand Russians, who speak Russian as their mother tongue in a country of 5 million. A small number after all.

valtsu




Wow, quite a story/history.

As to the Ingrians return - I will never forget an early 90-ties scene in Sheremetievo airport when I run into a company of what looked like a group of peasants in theatrically "peasantish" dresses. They spoke Russian which was difficult to understand. Then one of them flashed Lufthansa tickets and by that and that one of old woman was addressed "Louise" I figured out that these are "Volga" Germans from Kazakhstan "repatriating" to Germany. They also had a live goose in a basket. I do not BS you. In 90-ties one can see many unbelievable scenes.

VM.

I guess the exodus from Russia according to ethnicity started with Israel "recalling" its "citizens" back to Israel. At SVO airport in the 1970-s where I was working there the customs gave a really hard time to these people. They had to bring their things for inspection already on the previous day. Jewelry etc was usually confiscated as the passengers could not produce valid export licenses, pictures were torn off family albums to see that nothing was hidden under the photos and so on. The humiliation was total.

The second biggest group was the Germans as you described. When I was working in Germany in the 1980-s I visited a so called receiving center for returning Germans. It was crowded, but otherwise adaquate. Not a word of german was heard, all spoke only russian.

In Estonia right after the fall of USSR there were returning 3rd and 4th generation estonians from Russia. They were granted Estonian citizenship automatically. The retournees blended in the mixed society very well. I made a program for the Estonian Radio foreign service in swedish and finnish about them since the matter of returning Ingrians was a hot potato in Finland at that time. I don't have any idea how big the numbers of returning balts from Russia were, but this apparently has not been an issue in any of the Baltic countries.

There is a constant emigration of ethnic Japanese and especially Koreans in the Russian Far East, but I don't know much about that.




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