Finland: What I learned in the sauna about Finns and Russians

There is a sauna on a bay called Vanhaupunginselkä in the middle of Helsinki, which is special for Finnish conditions. The SOMPA sauna is open around the clock all year round, admission is free of charge, and in addition to the three sweat huts, voluntary wood chop. Anyone who comes by can throw a few notes in the oven and sweat off.

I was in Finland at the end of January for a report on the hybrid warfare of the Kremlin. Because the head sometimes needs a little air with such a research, I stopped by on a cloudy on Wednesday afternoon in the Smpa sauna. It is operated by an association that is financed by donations and whose members take care of the site.

Unlike in Germany, you don’t sit still and naked in the SOMPA sauna on your towel. Most visitors sit on the wooden benches in the bathroom department without a base and talk. Between the gears, they cool off in the ice -cold Baltic Sea, then it goes back into the warmth. The wood cracks in the oven, Löyly hovers in the air: This is how the Finns call the sauna steam.

When I came, there was a Russian, a Swede and a Finn. This is not a joke. We quickly got into conversation and talked about how Finns and Russians cope with each other in the difficult political mixture.

Andrej, the Russian, spread his problems. He is an IT developer, but find no work, not even as a snow shipper, and do not know whether it was due to the poor economic situation or its origin. Ralf, a teacher who belongs to the Swedish -speaking minority in Finland, said that there was Finnish, Russian and Ukrainian children at his school and everyone would be very good at each other. He does not believe that there is a lot of racism in Finland. And Lauri, the Finn, diligently discussed, but finally said: “Actually, the sauna is there to relax and not to talk about politics.” Here everyone is the same here in the SOMPA sauna.

Unfortunately, it is not as an egalitarian everywhere as in the sauna.

When I do research abroad, I always try to talk to the inhabitants. In the Finnish village of Svartbäck I met an older man named Ingmar. He was in Svartbäck because the “Eagle S” has been in front of anchor for a few weeks: an oil tanker who damaged a submarine between Finland and Estonia shortly after Christmas, probably at the behest of the Kremlin. From a wooden footbridge at the end of the village you have a good view of the ship.

Ingmar told me that he loved to have the Russians themselves, he just condemned their politics. If Russians attack, you have to hit back as hard as possible, they would not even notice everything else. He quoted a Finnish proverb: "The Russian remains a Russian, even if you fry it in butter" - tough and inedible.

Of course, only a small part of the Finnish population has anti -Russian attitudes. But this part is sufficient to counter some of the racist prejudices. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, many of them have been in a moral dilemma: they condemn Putin's aggression, but do not want to express this publicly - for fear of consequences, the next time they visit their homeland.

During my research I also drove to the Finnish-Russian border. In autumn 2023, the number of asylum seekers suddenly multiplied there. The Finnish government accused the Kremlin a hybrid attack and then concluded all transitions.

In Lappenranta, a city near the border, I visited Ivan Deviatkin. The 34-year-old comes from Russia, but has lived in Finland for twelve years and works as an engineer at a large forest company. With black coffee and blueberry cake, he told me that a local reporter recently described him as potential Russian agents without any evidence.

Deviatkin is committed to ensuring that the border closure between Russia and Finland is reversed. When I visited him, felt pens and boxes lay on the floor in his living room. The Finnish President had announced himself in the city and Deviatkin prepared protest posters. One of them said: "I miss my grandmother." This was what his nine -year -old son came up with, Deviatkin said. In the past, they were regularly commuting their homeland to visit family and friends. Since the border was tight, he hasn't seen it anymore.

In the past three years, since the outbreak of war, the relationship between Russians and Finns has cooled down. He once fell in love with Finland, Deviatkin told me at the kitchen table. In freedom of expression, people, democracy. In the meantime he is wondering whether Finland love him too. "The country that I moved into twelve years ago now feels very different."