2018 cross-border traffic down
Europe’s three northernmost border checkpoints to Russia all had a decline in traffic of about 4% in 2018.
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Less people from the Kola Peninsula travels across the borders to northern Finland and Norway. The decline in 2018 was 4,7% at Salla checkpoint, 4% at Raja-Joosepi and 3,8% at Storskog.
Storskog, which is Norway’s single entry checkpoint from Russia, counted 254,942 border crossings, down about 10,000 compared with 2017, but still higher than 2016 and 2015, figures given to the Barents Observer from the police in charge of immigration control show.
At Finland’s two northernmost border checkpoints, statistics from the Border Guard show that 128,054 travelers were counted at Raja-Joosepi and 221,933 crossings took place at Salla further south in Lapland.
The Finnish Border Guard says 2018 traffic to and from Russia is 48% of what it was back in peak year 2013, when a total of 386,942 people were crossing to and from the Murmansk region.
Also Norway’s Storskog checkpoint had all time high in 2013 with 320,000 border crossings.
