There is a several-hour drive between Murmansk and the Ivalo and Kirkenes airports, but they’re still popular among Russians traveling to Europe. The main reasons are cheaper tickets and more convenient flight connections between Helsinki, Oslo and other European cities. The low-cost Norwegian airline has flights from Ivalo and Kirkenes to both capitals; moreover, it forced Finnair and SAS to lower ticket prices.
The intensity of movement between the Kola Peninsula, Northern Norway and Finnish Lapland can be estimated by the passport control statistics at border crossing points. As the Regnum Agency reports, this week there has been a 20% flow growth across the countries’ border. The flow to Lapland has grown twice as much – by 41%.
According to the Finnish Frontier Service, all in all 226.8 thousand people crossed the checkpoint of Salla and Raja-Jooseppi for the first eight months of the year, and it was only 160.3 thousands if compared to the same period of the last year. Murmansk citizens travel to Ivalo through Raja-Jooseppi, and to Salla through Rovaniemi.
For the first eight months there were 84.5 thousand crossings at Raja-Jooseppi which is by 29.3 thousands more than for the same period of 2011. At Salla checkpoint there were 142.4 thousand against 105.2 respectively.
