Lappeenranta: Two Finnish towns near the Russian border plan to close schools that offer Russian language and culture classes, upsetting parents and students who say cultural awareness is needed more than ever.
Finland’s relations with its powerful eastern neighbor have been strained since the 2022 Russian invasion.
The war forced Helsinki to reverse its decades-old policy of non-military intervention and join NATO in April 2023, a decision that angered Moscow.
When the cities of Lappeenranta and Joensuu announced this year that they would close two schools focused on Russian language and culture due to a lack of resources, school officials said it was the result of rising anti-Russian sentiment in Finland since the war in Ukraine. .
Katri Anttila, director of the School of Eastern Finland, said that city officials did not want to learn Russian after the invasion.
“It’s part of the same trend, very sad. I’m glad we have parents and students who don’t associate the Russian language with Russian President (Vladimir) Putin and the Russian government, because the language should not be related to politics. or a specific country.” he said.
The School of Eastern Finland has three branches in Lappeenranta, Imatra and Joensuu, and is the only school outside the capital Helsinki that offers Russian language and cultural studies in addition to the Finnish curriculum.
Established in 1997, the state-funded school has 700 students between the ages of six and 18.
However, when we visited the school in Lappeenranta, there were students who spoke Finnish and Russian in the classroom, and colorful posters hung on the walls in both languages.
The first spring flowers bloom in the dark April sky in the school yard, 30 km from Finland’s 1,340 kilometer (832 mile) border with Russia.
Students and teachers are outraged by Lappeenranta’s latest decision.
“I was shocked when I heard the school was going to close,” 18-year-old Eetu Waris told AFP.
Juhani Junnilainen, the city official in charge of education services in Lappeenranta, told AFP that the closure was due to a reform of the school system.
In addition, in the Lappeenranta school, “interest in the Russian language has declined for more than a decade,” and “Spanish has become more popular.”
The city of Turku has decided to end the Finnish-Russian language program in public schools this year, citing a drop in student numbers.
A Russian-language private school in Helsinki told AFP it had no plans to close.
Before the Covid pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, about two million Russian tourists crossed the Finnish border to the Lappeenranta region every year, generating more than 300 million euros ($322 million) in revenue.
Russian signs are now rare on the streets of Lappeenranta.
At the end of 2022, Finland introduced a ban allowing only essential travel for Russian tourists.
“Before the situation in Ukraine, you heard Russia everywhere,” said Varis, a student.
Finland has closed its eastern border with Russia, five months after it began smuggling undocumented migrants across the border in what Finnish officials called a “hybrid attack”. Russia has denied the allegations.
Tuomas Laitinen, a parent of two children at the Lappeenranta school, accused the city of underestimating the need to understand Russian culture and language in Finland.
“Geographically, we are not moving anywhere. Russia is next to us, we need to know about their culture.”
At the same time, Anttila stressed that Finland “must be able to understand the language of the Russian opposition” and said that he will continue his fight to keep the school doors open.
