MAY 12 - Continuation of Day 39a. We enter Finland again over the Utsjoki bridge, again with no visible border check. No need to change any Norwegian krone as I never got any in the first place. Everything I paid was by credit card.
A few km past the town, stop to take a few pictures.
Long road today, a bit over six hours minus stops. Gasoline prices in Finland haven’t gotten any better in the last week, still up around $8.90/gallon. The weather gets really warm, by late afternoon we are basking in 13 C, which we have hardly seen since entering Finland on April 26.
Stop for food at Sodankylä. The news is on, so see the results of Finland’s vote on membership to NATO. An overwhelming ‘kyllä’ (yes) count, more than 3/4 of the members of parliament. Entry of Finland into NATO would double the land border between NATO countries and Russia, and place it within 160 km of St. Petersburg.
Not surprisingly, Russia’s response to this vote were unspecified threats of ‘retaliation’, not very different from what was threatened prior to the vote. The irony is that Finland may never have gone to vote on the matter, if it had not been for the invasion of Ukraine. As Sauli Niinistö, the President of Finland, said a few days ago, Russia should look in the mirror if Finland decides to join NATO.
There are some basic parallels between Russia’s actions in the Ukraine with those taken against Finland in the 1939 Winter War. In the latter, Stalin built up military forces at the Finnish border in 1939, as Hitler was moving against Poland, and made a surprise attack later in the year.
Perhaps more surprising was the speech Putin gave at the May 9 celebrations in Moscow, which commemorate the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. It was expected that he would use the forum to announce a general mobilization or call to arms to bolster the invasion of the Ukraine. This he did not, though the speech was filled with propaganda on how the west (ironically) was attacking Russia. And how attacking targets in the Ukraine was akin to defending the motherland.
Perhaps the most insidious and WTF conspiracy theory that has been resuscitated recently by Russia is that the Nazis did, and still do, have Jewish ties. Hence, the president of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (who is Jewish), is also a secret Nazi. If just enough people believe such contrivances, the story has served its purpose.
From Sodankylä we head southeast on smaller roads to our cabin at Pyhäjärvi. On the way, pass several small herds of reindeer, and a few ptarmigans (already in their dark brown summer plumage).
