Last year, writer\u00a0Sofi Oksanen opened her talk at the\u00a0PEN World Voices Festival with “I bring greetings from the bordering countries to Russia.” Her topic was the ever-present threat Russia poses to her country.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland.<\/a> To a casual visitor, it seems like yet another Western European country, a placid paradise with its abundance of bicycles, its obsession with its own mid-twentieth-century design, and stores that close punctually at six in the evening. The Finns feel otherwise. When they go to neighboring Sweden, they say they are \u201cgoing to Europe.\u201d As it happens, neither country is a member of NATO, but only Finland has a long land border with Russia\u2014and a living memory of having been invaded by the Soviet Union.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(via Prufrock<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last year, writer\u00a0Sofi Oksanen opened her talk at the\u00a0PEN World Voices Festival with “I bring greetings from the bordering countries to Russia.” Her topic was the ever-present threat Russia poses to her country. Welcome to the nerve-wracking reality of being Finland. To a casual visitor, it seems like yet another Western European country, a placid … Continue reading Life in Finland, Russian Neighbor<\/span>