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Peak hours at Barents borders

Lining up for passport control at Storskog.

The first days of May have been all time high for border-crossings at Russia’s northernmost check-points to Europe.

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1,882 border-crossings were counted at the Norwegian, Russian border on May 2nd.

“Never before have so many crossed the border in one single day,” says head of police at Norway’s Storskog border check-point, Stein Hansen, to BarentsObserver.

The crowd traffic continued on Friday the 3rd with 1,854 border-crossings. During early May holidays, many travelers from Russia’s Kola Peninsula drive to Norway for shopping.

Also to Finland, cross-border shopping is very popular among Russians. Russia has two border check-points to Finnish Lapland used by travelers on their way to Ivalo and Rovaniemi.  

At Salla, the check-point used by most Murmanskers traveling to Rovaniemi, 1,824 border-crossings were counted on May 1st, according Russia-media.ru. The news-portal refer to statistics given by the customs’ press service in Murmansk.

At the Norwegian, Russian border, more than 100,000 border-crossings are counted so far this year. That is the same amount as in the entire 2008.