Trends in the development of cross-border trade in the Russian-Finnish borderlands

Abstract

This article considers the development of cross-border trade and tourism in the Russian- Finnish borderlands in the 19th/21st centuries. We describe the evolution of cross-border trade in the Russian-Finnish borderlands at different stages of the territory’s development. The patterns of cross-border trade have always been depended on the national policies of the two countries. Since the 19th century, cross-border trade in the Russian-Finnish borderlands has been the product of two factors. The first one is the demand from local residents for certain imported goods that are either absent or much more expensive in their own country. The second factor is the possibility of receiving additional or even basic income. We distinguish several periods (peddlar trade, Soviet-Finnish tourism, shuttle trade, shopping tourism) in the evolution of Russian-Finnish cross-border trade and identify their major trends and characteristics. We describe the general patterns of cross-border trade in these historical periods and juxtapose the pertinent institutional, organisational and infrastructural settings. We explain why the direction of the flow of finance and goods changed. Until the early 20th century, goods were brought to and money collected from Finland’s borderlands. Since the 1920s, the opposite situation has been observed. The latter trend has been growing in recent years. In this article, we aim at providing a periodisation and detecting the trends in and features of the evolution of cross-border trade in the Russian-Finnish borderlands in the 19th/21st centuries. To this end, we carry out a statistics and data analysis. We describe the Russian and international approaches to studying cross-border shopping tourism. We address Finland’s experience in stimulating inbound shopping tourism from Russia and examine why the Russians are attracted to the neighbouring state.

Travel preferences of Finnish cross-border tourists: Opportunities and limitations for Russian Karelia

“…The studies of cross-border tourism have generally approached tourist mobility as beneficial for the regional and local development, identifying the strengths as well as limitations for its further growth (Więckowski, 2010;Makkonen, 2016;Stepanova & Shlapeko, 2018;Stepanova, 2019b;Chow & Tsui, 2019).…”

“…Along with an increasing role of tourism in the local economy of the Finnish borderland, the significance of the studies that assess tourists' motivations and cross-border tourism of Russians has increased. Thus, in comparison to the thorough and multifaceted studies of the issue in the Finnish borderland (Käyhty, 1999;Gurova, 2012;Izotov & Laine, 2013;Gurova & Ratilainen, 2015Björn, 2015;Hannonen, 2016;Laine, 2017;Stepanova & Shlapeko, 2018;Studzinska et al, 2018;Prokkola, 2010Prokkola, , 2019, the tourist flow of Finnish citizens to Russian (Soviet) borderland territories is practically unstudied, and the results are fragmented. Several studies have focused on selected aspects of Finnish tourism in Soviet Estonia (Kostiainen, 1999;Lauren, 2014;McKenzie, 2016) and in the city of Vyborg (Shikalov & Hämynen, 2013;Shikalov, 2016).…”

“…Several studies have focused on selected aspects of Finnish tourism in Soviet Estonia (Kostiainen, 1999;Lauren, 2014;McKenzie, 2016) and in the city of Vyborg (Shikalov & Hämynen, 2013;Shikalov, 2016). The opportunities to improve the shopping process for Russian tourists and to increase income due to the use of the Russian language have been presented in several papers (Gurova, 2012;Stepanova & Shlapeko, 2018).…”

Development of cross-border tourist and recreational regions on the Karelian section of the Russian-Finnish border

“…Research into the Russian-Finnish borderlands examines transboundary tourist mobility [10][11][12][13], cross-border cooperation and projects [14][15][16][17], the emergence of a common socio-cultural space [18] and a territorial identity [19; 20], and the development of transboundary tourism ties [21; 22]. The findings of these studies have laid the groundwork for identifying transboundary tourism and recreation regions of various hierarchical levels in the Russian-Finnish borderlands.…”

New Non-Industrial Activities In Russian Regions: Culinary Tourism In Karelia

“…Unfortunately, financial support of these companies from the region is not enough (Stepanova & Shlapeko, 2018a).…”