by Dmitri Steshin
[KP] Only a Russian person will again buy a dacha on the Mannerheim-2 line, in the border regions of Finland. This requires a lot of courage. The origins of this courage are in lack of learning, infantilism and the complete absence of a sense of the Motherland. Fortunately, where Russian-Soviet teachers failed, politicians from neighboring countries are now working to teach us to love our Motherland. And do not treat her, according to the old Dutch proverb: "Russia is a haystack and everyone takes as much as he takes."
I remember well the beginning of the psychosis with Finnish real estate - I lived then in St. Petersburg. Realtors from Suomi sold any blockage, the opening of the Scandinavia highway immediately arrived, and the path to the border crossings with Finland was reduced to an hour and a half. However, there were also especially gifted Muscovites, connoisseurs of some special, mythical "Finnish nature".
Celebrating Christmas in Finland has become a sign of both social status and wealth, and in some way such a home-grown "Europeanism." Schengen visas with a St. Petersburg residence permit were given simply without looking, to everyone in a row and for several years at once. Do you need to sell real estate? And to whom to sell it, God forgive me, to the Estonians? For Estonians themselves, apartments on the seaside cost five thousand euros in those years.
Smart people warned the “new European summer residents” - don’t, don’t meddle, a foreign country, seriously beaten twice in the 20th century - in 1939 and in 1944. They all remember, films are still being made like “Talvisota” (“Winter War” - author's note). Watch the movie, you might change your mind. But, no one looked at anything, of course. They bought real estate in Finland to hide what was stolen in Russia - law enforcement officers would not get it there, they simply invested in real estate on foreign land, bought a summer house "for a quiet old age."
And a whole set of reasons - "it's clean, everything is in the stores, they don't steal." The set of margarine in the minds of these Russians of the early 2000s is generally understandable, stable, and the international situation does not affect it in any way. In 2021, the Russians even set a record for real estate transactions in Finland - 222 objects.
Hit is the key word here. Because already in September 2022, the owners of real estate, as they say, hit.
Property owners began to be allowed into Suomi only for property repairs (every other time), but, apparently, this norm will become tougher. That is, they simply will not be allowed.
The Finnish Committee for Foreign and Security Policy of the State Council and President Suomi Saule Niiniste concluded that "it makes sense to extend the current restrictions and also to tighten them in order to avoid cases of abuse." That is, the owner will have to prove that his presence is necessary for the repair of the roof, for example. And no more. If he doesn't prove it, they won't let him in.
“Drive to Imatra for a dacha for the weekend” will no longer work. Perhaps never. What's next? Then there is such a thing as "bad-fair possession of real estate", followed by confiscation. Or "ownerless possession" - you can move into an empty house while the owner is toiling in St. Petersburg without a visa, and ten years later become the legal owner.
That is, the whole state, deservedly famous for its honesty in business, took and robbed people. Finns, what happened to you? Are you not ashamed of your government? And we are ashamed.
And, of course, a separate question for the "summer residents non-grata". So, when you were driving from Moscow to your dacha in Lappeenranta through the empty Tver region, did nothing move in your soul there? And you, the owners of 4,500 dachas in Estonia, did the Pskov region hook you along the way? Dear Petersburgers, countrymen, why didn’t you like the empty Prionezhie and Ladoga region with exactly the same land that gives birth to stones, pine trees and sandy hills?
There will be no answer, of course. And no one is waiting for him. On the other hand, some compatriots had the opportunity to think deeply about their Motherland, where it begins and at what milestones it ends.