The statistics from Finland’s consulate branch office in Murmansk speaks for itself. In the period from January to end of May, 15.052 visas were issued. Only 1 percent of the applications for visa to Finland were turned down. The numbers of visa issued in the first five months last year were 7.623, giving an increase of 97 percent year-on-year.
- If the tendency continues this way, we will make a new record again this year and make much more than 30.000 visas in 2011, says Sari Pöyhönen at Finland’s consulate branch office in Murmansk to BarentsObserver.
- Almost all issued visas from Murmansk are multiple-entry visas. About 95-98 percent are multiple-entry visas, says Sari Pöyhönen.
Pöyhönen says the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs is responding to the visa growth in Murmansk and will hire a fifth visa worker to be employed from this autumn. Today there are four visa-workers for Finland in Murmansk.
The statistics from Finland’s border authorities also shows a sharp increase in numbers of border crossings over the two Finnish border stations to Russia’s Kola Peninsula. In total, 102.969 border crossings were counted at Salla and Raja Joosepin in the first five months 2011, up from 72.735 the same period last year.
Most people cross in and out of Finland at Salla, the border station west of Kandalaksha south on the Kola Peninsula on the way towards Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. 63.887 border crossings were counted at Salla, while 39.082 border crossings were counted at Raja Joosepin, the border between Murmansk and the Finnish town of Ivalo in the north.
Also Norway is increasingly popular among Murmanskers. As previously reported by BarentsObserver, the numbers of border crossings at BorisGleb / Storskog on the Norwegian-Russian border increased with 52 percent in May this year compared with May 2010.
But, while Finland near doubled the number of issued visas over the first five months in 2011, the increase in visas issued by the Norwegian Consulate General in Murmansk in the same period increased only by 20 percent.
