Today's escapades took us close to Russia, specifically somewhere near N 61° 29.500 E 029° 29.800. We could see Russia across the lake, but never got close enough to see a border crossing. And there were no nearby safe places to stop to take a picture, though it wouldn't have looked any different from this part of Finland. Without visas we knew we wouldn't be able to enter the country, but took the opportunity to get close anyway.
We've seen some evidence of being close to Russia. On the way from Tampere, we found a cache that commemorated Russian POWs during the 1940s. The castle in Savonlinna was constructed by Sweden (who owned Finland at the time) but when Russia captured the area they made some changes/expansions to the building. Today we looked unsuccessfully for a cache that was placed in some c.1940 trenches; the info sign said they were never used in battle but might have influenced what land Finland retained after the war; in any case it was fun to walk over and through the trenches. We've seen numerous tourist signs in 4 languages: Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian; some restaurant menus have also included Russian.
Tomorrow we head west to Helsinki, our final destination before returning home on Sunday.
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