The consulate has employed additional workers to try to deal with the backlog of applications, and says it handles a couple thousand applications every day. According to Finnish Consulate Pauli Kivinen, the flood of applications seen last Christmas has continued throughout this year Applicants are forced to wait up to five weeks for their papers to be processed, Yle News reports. Kivinen estimates that the Finnish Consulate in St. Petersburg will process over 600,000 visas this year. Last year, the consulate sorted through 450,000 applications — which was also an all time high.
