Within the EU, in particular the Schengen area, there are no passport checks. However Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark had a pact way before Schengen that allowed their citizens to move freely between the countries so it's been this way for a long time.
It's called Nordic Passport Union. It was first implemented in 1952. 1952 also happens to be the year of the first video game, unrelated, but still an interesting coincidence.
It should be interesting to se him trying but as a swede I can honestly admit that Russia is the only nation close to my country as I newer been interested in visiting ewen if somebody payed for ewerything. And I felt the same way ewen before ewerything started with Ukraina. I guess we swedes being raised with negative feelings towards Russia. 😂
I grew up in Haparanda. Crossing the border was never that big of a deal to me, and it wasn't until i moved away, that i started to realize that it actually was unusual to be able to do it so easily. When i was 18 -19 years old we would go over to Finland to buy beer, as we could get stronger beer there, ( you need to be 20 to buy anything over 3.5% in Sweden) and the ngo back over to Sweden to "pregame" on that beer, then go back over to Finland again, as all the good bars where in Tornio, and finally go back over to Sweden again, to go home. We did this pretty much every weekend. Many finns live on the swedish side of the border, and most Swedes in Haparanda also speak finnish. The main reason i decided to move away, was that i was in the minority in Haparanda that didn't speak Finnish, and that always made me feel abit handicaped living in that town.
@@xhorus88 You're absolutely right. However, my relatives were not. 3 of my grandparents came from villages to the west of Haparanda( Nikkala, Seskarö and Säivis) with the last one hailing from Stockholm. Ironically the one from Stockholm had the most finnish blood in him out of all 4. The other 3 came from old swedish families who had lived in the area for generations, and only one of them spoke any finnish.
Fun fact: For a sizeable portion of Norway, the Happaranda Ikea is the closest one. It's not unusual to drive all the way from Troms and Finnmark to stock up on ikea stuff and furniture.
Crossing borders is quite informal throughout the EU. There are ski centers in the Alps, where you can cross the border on skis without even realizing it many times a day.
And every time we swedes visit finland i have learned to ask politety in the hotel reception if they speak swedish. ("Talar ni svenska" på finlandssvenska, eller "pratar ni svenska") Finlandssvenska är ursprungssvenskan från Sverige. Finlandsvenskan säger aderton. I Sverige kallas den svenskan för "gammalsvenska" I Sverige säger vi arton. Regarding receptionist, they usually do Swedish, but do remember that is very difficult for a finn to learn swedish. In Finland it is mandatory to learn swedish. Most people in Finland speak english The finns are cleaner, they have saunas in the hotel rooms, and they have muikku. Dont forget to eat the Berlusconi pizza at Koti Pizza! It won a price in italy!
Finns are cleaner, sa du verkligen det? Finnar är renligare. Är själv halvfinsk men om finnar är renligare för att de alla har bastu, det vet jag inte 😅@@thomasraden3793
@@thomasraden3793Its not harder than learning English for a Finn. People just dont like to learn it because its mandatory and not as useful like English
The border is just 20 meters outside the shopping center. The square there is called Victoriatorget after the swedish crown princess Victoria. It's a square common with both Finland and Sweden. If you look at 3:21 you see a thin square arch to the right of the shopping center, thats the border that runs alongside the shopping center. At new years eve you can celebrate the first new years eve in Finland, then walk a few meters to celebrate it again in Sweden as Finland has one hour later timezone than Sweden.
@@thomasraden3793 There was a plan to build the shopping centre but iirc it went backrupt. They have now started to fill in the hole they have dug there.
Finland built a huge lighthouse on an island, shared by Sweden and Finland. Oops, they built it on the Swedish side! War? Nah, we just redrew the border on that island. Easy as that! Looks weird on the map if you're not from around here. :-)
that was a fascinating story 👍. I had to look up the details. Built in 1885, the building was always considered Finish, and operated by Finland. It remained on the Swedish side of the border for 100 years, until it was changed in 1985.
@@Ah01 Finland had autonomy during Russian rule, it was our own senate which accepted the lighthouse to be build. The architect and the builders of the lighthouse were Finns.
I'm Swedish but haven't been to this border myself so it was nice to see. Regarding the currency: The basic unit is called 1 krona (plural: kronor). However, when speaking English we often do what the cashier did and call it "crowns" instead (which is really just a literal translation).
@@tomgoesnomad historically speaking, it wasn't that long since we changed from the old currency called "Riksdaler" to Kronor, think I saw at some point that the conversion rate was 1 to 25 (1 Riksdaler was worth 25 kronor). 5:03 Whenever you see SEK, it stands for "Svenska kronor or Swedish crowns. Edit: changed SEK to it's correct meaning.
I don't believe there are any twin-cities on the Finish-Norwegian border, like Tornio-Haparanda. Utsjoki is similarly close to the Finish-Norwegian border, but you won't find a lot (except nature, and a highway) on the Norwegian side.
@@beastman83532det er vel mest sansynlig ved tre rikstøysa mellom Norge., Finland og Russland tor der er det ikke tillatt å krysse grensa til Russland
It's so easy to cross all of the nordic countries because they are all sibling countries. They were all more or less part of each other at one point. Scandinavia was ofc all Vikings splitting up at the end, forming their own countries. Finland was part of Sweden for a long time and eventually became their own. But Sweden and Finland probably has THE biggest brother/sister relationship of any country in the world. It's hard to describe for non Swedes/finns, but any Swede or Finn would understand that relationship. We jab at each other all the time, but you can't separate us at the end.
No, it's because of the Nordic Passport Union which precedes Schengen and didn't require any border agents or formalities at all because if you had already passed into the Nordic Passport Union you were in. This is the reason.
It is hard to explain why it would feel weird to have closed borders. Like, why?Sweden and Denmark have the world record of most wars fought between two states - we got tired of it centuries ago. Norwegians can do their grocery shopping in Sweden, Swedes and Finns are so intermarried we are basically all cousins, Swedes and Danes share a metropolitan area around the Öresund bridge.
@@MegaBanne Well there's lots of shared history between these countries, but since that agreement was done in 1952 it was probably quite a different world compared to today.
I live in Finland and have Norwegien friend, Eilev who has been in Finland a dozen times, see while he was serving in Norwegian border guard the guys had a habit to go to a big border stone standing where the the borders of Sweden, Finland and Norway join and run circles around the stone. They were armed guards from one contry crossing from one country to another😊 no fuss no pasports no permits just fun, try doing that on the eastern border of Finland…
@@leif-kareeikeland5209 Basically yes, but not only on the little island around the cairn. We left our car in Signaldalen, hiked toGappohytta and slept there. Then we hiked to Pältsätuga and Pältsä waterfall. From there we hiked to Kuohkimajärvi, spent two nights there and hiked via Goldahytta to the top of Bárrás, slept one night on the slope of Bárrás and hiked back to our car.
Haha, when I found this video I thought "Trying to walk.. Trying? It's no need to try, you just walk! No problem!" 😁 If I'm ever moving from Sweden, I'm going for Finland. Maybe just not as far north 😅 (I lived in a town called Boden in Sweden before, and the Ikea closest there is Haparanda, so I've been shopping there. Now I live in Stockholm and really prefer a bit more daylight during the winters)
boarder /ˈbɔːdə/ noun 1. a person who receives regular meals when staying somewhere, in return for payment or services. 2. a person who forces their way on to a ship in an attack.
In the Nordic countries this has been normal for ages. Back in 1979, I was coming on a train from Denmark to Sweden and as usual, the border controls came and asked for passports, I didn't care to dig out my passport so I just said to them "Finländare" (Finnish in Swedish language), nothing else. They didn't bother me after that, they just asked the other people for their passports.
Well... considering the impact of ABBA on the human collective consciousness, this could be said to constitute the lowest level of knowledge of ABBA, and thus be equated to "nothing". No? ;-)
3:09 the border is literally seen in the ground man.... Finnish side the square has ground heating and Swedish side is covered with snow. 3:16 that sign located already in Sweden...
I don't believe he was unaware of where the border is. It's more about trying to say there's little to tell you there is a border unless you know it's there. While crossing under E4, joking about not knowing the country, he must have known, because it would have been obvious while he was using Google Maps.
this brings back good memories. I used to live in Kemi for a short while in Finland, and almost every weekend I would head up to Tornio and spend the day either there or across the border. It is good to see its still as beautiful as ever
It's been that easy since 1952. Citizen in the Nordic countries are Nordic citizens so we have been crossing the Nordic borders without any passport and almost no border controls since 1952. And it was the same before WW1.
Summer 2022, my family and I drove from Eskilstuna (around 100km west of Stockholm) to Oulu, Finland. We stopped at the exact same Hotel (Hotelli Olof) as you! Obviously it was at summer so the weather was nice and bright. It was the first time I actually stayed awake since it's a long drive (about 1100km). I got shocked about the whole no border thing. And also got shocked that nearly every store on the Swedish side had shelves upon shelves of Snus (a Swedish type tobacco).
I used to live about 400 m from that border. In true swedish fashion we mostly crossed it to have a few drinks, keeping up the bad reputation, as is our holy duty. In all seriousness, it was a very cool experience, and in true finnish fashion they used to have a kiosk right beyond the border that only took Euro, as a cheeky FU. I appreciate things like that.
Nice video. Did you know that there is a golf course in Tornio-Haaparanta which is partly in Finland and partly in Sweden. It's about 2km north from that shopping center. By the way, Haaparanta is Finnish and means literally "Aspen shore".
I have done that several times, because of traveling with animals in the car not allowed over the border (Rabies shots required Finland to Sweden). Never been any issues.
I used to cross the border every morning and afternoon for over two years back when I was studying in Tornio. I drove whilst iiving in Kalix and when I later on moved to Haparanda i used to ride my bike or walk. As a student I was no stranger to parties either, and on weekends I crossed drunk on several occations. Over the years the border guards only stopped me once, while driving to school. A couple of years after exam they closed the border check all together. "The twin cities" surely live up to their name! These days I travel to Tornio once in a while to stock up on licorice and finnish sausages.
Thanks for this, very interesting to see my (rather boring) hometown in a documentary-like video. To get the authentic border experience, you should go to Nuuskakaira and smuggle some snus to Finland side (and be afraid of the customs).
It feels so strange to see my home town in a youtube video. But Tornio is indeed unique for the free crossing. Some people travel to Tornio from afar just so that they can get to Sweden and buy a ton of snus. Snus is a type of tobacco that you place under your lip, nasty stuff, but some folks are into it.
Snus is wonderful, says I who never use tobacco. However, there is no such sting as passive use of snus so in that respect it is far, far superior to cigarrettes to the non-smoker!
Snus is the worst thing ever invented. I hate it. Cant understand what people like about it. It taste horrible and its just wrong! But then again, we live in a free country and we like different things. :)
It is really nothing special about the Swedish-Finnish border, it is the same everywhere in the Schengen area, which UK of course never was a part of. I have crossed the border on foot too, but some 450 km further north! (Hiking from Kilpisjärvi to the three countries SWE-FIN-NOR meeting point)
Add to that, the Nordic Passport Union which has been in place since the 1950s. (1952 - open borders, no passport needed, 1954 - free movement for residence/work, 1958 - passport checks for non-citizens also removed)
well, if you look at Estonian - Finnish border, you see a lot more control going on; Police and Tax. I drive throughout the EU sometimes and see the same situation especially from Slovakia into Poland, and Lithuania into Poland.
I always lose immersion whenever I see a wide angle shot and the single person walking by, realizing they would have had to set it all up, and then come back for the camera once they've passed it.
I got stopped by the border polis when I crossed and they asked "where are you heading, from". What does he mean... - Stockholm I answered... - Are you heading to Stockholm? (going to Torino makes no sense) - No no, to Grense, Norway.
Fun fact: Lappland is a region that extends across the border. So your comment “I’m going back to Finland because I have more of Lappland to explore” makes no sense! You were still in Lappland in Sweden.
@@NightwishArena even here in southern Finland the duration of sunlight is only 6 hours 30 minutes currently 😅 People go to work/school when its dark and when they are coming home the sun goes down
Odd thing to make a widea about. You can cross the border by foot or riding a bike, whatever. Just like crossing a border from Netherlands to Belgium etc., just a sign saying that you have crossed the border. That is called schengen area. I cross the border routinely to buy cheaper gasoline from Sweden, whenever I happen to drive there.
I have crossed that border by car many times. My great grandmother lived not far from the border on the Swedish side and so my grandfather and I would drive over to Finland to buy candy and then head back.
@@leob4403 First of all I realized that I was actually thinking of another border crossing much further north, not this one. Secondly, I am not really sure. I think there was a store just across the border that had some candy I liked that was not available in Sweden.
The world should be easy to travel between borders like it used to be free and easily, countries are an idea, idea's should not dictate where people can go, every person has a right to travel this earth freely.
Btw you are not really in Lapland yet when you are in Tornio, usually people consider Rovaniemi to be the most southern point where you can start calling it Lapland but even then you have quite the way to go north if you look at the map
Crossing borders within the EU is like, going from one province to the other or one state to the other. The only thing that change are some local laws, the language and the license plates :)
Well, pass the border by foot between Norway/Finland/Sweden is as hard as you let it get :) Walking over the border from Sweden to Denmark is a pretty long walk over a bridge so thats hard only because of that 😁 Between Norway and Denmark… well, I hope you like swimming 😉 Because taking a boat is not walking. But just as you noticed its very undramatic to pass the Nordic borders:)
As a Finn, you notice that you've crossed the border when you see the Swedes signal wrongly in the roundabout that you drive to right after the border crossing.They signal to the left until they leave the roudabout, whereas the Finns signal to the right only when they leave it. Swedes will contest this, but your way is absolutely the wrong way to do it lol.
Scandinavians trust each other so much that even their border crossing basically doesn't exist because all of them know they wouldn't harm one another. But outside of that hemisphere...
I assume you got checked at the border to Finland. We trust that they are capable and don’t let in any dodgy people and we trust the Finnish people coming over. What’s the point of a border? 😊🇸🇪❤️🇫🇮
there are many "bordercrossings" into sweden/out of sweden that are unguarded or unmanned both over to finland (a other EU country) and I guess into norway (a non cgengen/no eu member). It is a HUGE border running way out in the wilderness (in the mountains and deep forest and noone really lives there) - and as other pointed out there has for VERY long before EU been a agreement of the nordic countries that we can travel there without passports and even have the RIGHT to use our naitive tounge in contact with goverment (ie speaking finnish in sweden, or on Iceland when talking to the police for example) - except for finnish (the non swedish speakers) and icelandic communication isnt impossible if both sides try to make themselves understood and speak slowly and clearly (finnish isnt the same germanic language as the rest of the nordic languages and more related to estonian and hungarian even is many people speaks a swedish dialect long the coast, and icelandic is as close as we are goning to get to the viking way of talking in the modern world)
It is actually stupid that it so easy to cross the border there. A lot of drugs come from Sweden to Finland, and many Finnish people are willing to take stupid risk by bringing more snuff than is allowed. It's not legal to sell snuff in Finland, but we have a lot of people who are using it. So if you live far from the border, it is tempting to bring more than is allowed, because you probably don't get caught. But if you do, you can get pretty big fine...or if you are bringing a loads of it, you can end up in jail. Some are even willing to take that bigger risk and sell it here.
In the past, a lot of the drug came in from Russia through Finland, I've heard. Don't know how it is these days!? Regardless, Finland is perceived more like Russia than Sweden. At least my experience after traveling around both countries. So it feels a bit more rural than Sweden. Sweden more modern and people are a little nicer, nicer clothes too.
@@niki7040you must be trolling, finland was integral part of sweden for 700 years, and 100 years autonimical part of the russian empire. Finland is a free liberal democracy and is pretty much like sweden.
@@revolverlynx8150 You miss my point. I know that Finland was part of Sweden, hence the city of Vasa! I'm talking about Finland feeling like they're a little "after", a little country feeling. And that Finns seem to be so serious and almost a little humorless. But I could be wrong...
@@niki7040Finland is nothing like Russia. Finland is a modern Nordic and western country. By the way Finland has been ranked the best country by World economic Forum conference in Switzerland Davos 2019 and the happiest country six times in a row 2018-2023. Russia or any other Eastern European countries have never achieved that position. All the Nordic countries are among the ten best and happiest countries.
Finland and Sweden used to be the same country for about 800 years, until the Russians conquered Sweden in 1809 and claimed the eastern half of the country. So we're definitely pretty close still.
The 2 countries are friendly, but the reason there are no border controls is because we are both E.U. members. The E.U. has made borders easier to cross, but you folks from the UK were never part of the Schengen area, so even when you were in the EU, the English had border controls that most EU lands did not.
Technically speaking a non-EU citizen like Tom should have tried to find some border authority to show his passport before crossing the border, but i dunno if anybody really cares, especially if You look European (and do not speak Russian).
@@Ba_Yegu No. Anyone traveling in the Schengen Area is allowed to cross the internal borders without a passport, regardless where you are from. At very many crossings including this one, there is no border authority stationed.
Within the EU, in particular the Schengen area, there are no passport checks. However Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark had a pact way before Schengen that allowed their citizens to move freely between the countries so it's been this way for a long time.
Since 1953.
It's called Nordic Passport Union. It was first implemented in 1952. 1952 also happens to be the year of the first video game, unrelated, but still an interesting coincidence.
@@mikaturunen2354 I would like to know where you got the year 1953, considering the Wikipedia page on the matter doesn't even mention the date.
since july 14th 1952
@@odnx Don't you just love the first reply spreading disinformation?
Next video: Trying to walk across the border to Russia
And we newer know what happens😂
😂
Good luck walking to Russia from Norway too.
It should be interesting to se him trying but as a swede I can honestly admit that Russia is the only nation close to my country as I newer been interested in visiting ewen if somebody payed for ewerything. And I felt the same way ewen before ewerything started with Ukraina. I guess we swedes being raised with negative feelings towards Russia. 😂
His stay in Russia will continue for like several years in Siberia
I grew up in Haparanda. Crossing the border was never that big of a deal to me, and it wasn't until i moved away, that i started to realize that it actually was unusual to be able to do it so easily. When i was 18 -19 years old we would go over to Finland to buy beer, as we could get stronger beer there, ( you need to be 20 to buy anything over 3.5% in Sweden) and the ngo back over to Sweden to "pregame" on that beer, then go back over to Finland again, as all the good bars where in Tornio, and finally go back over to Sweden again, to go home. We did this pretty much every weekend.
Many finns live on the swedish side of the border, and most Swedes in Haparanda also speak finnish. The main reason i decided to move away, was that i was in the minority in Haparanda that didn't speak Finnish, and that always made me feel abit handicaped living in that town.
I grew up in Tornio until we moved away when I was 16 haha. I spent a lot of time in Haparanda, and some of my friends lived there.
Tjena Happis!
Most people in haparanda are descended from Finns
@@xhorus88 You're absolutely right. However, my relatives were not. 3 of my grandparents came from villages to the west of Haparanda( Nikkala, Seskarö and Säivis) with the last one hailing from Stockholm. Ironically the one from Stockholm had the most finnish blood in him out of all 4. The other 3 came from old swedish families who had lived in the area for generations, and only one of them spoke any finnish.
Long before EU I lived in Norway, and there were no border that we noticed, except that the Swedes drove on the left until October 1967
"Trying to WALK", the street sign in the thumbnail is indicating the walk/bike lane across the boarder. There is no need to try, just go :)
Fun fact: For a sizeable portion of Norway, the Happaranda Ikea is the closest one. It's not unusual to drive all the way from Troms and Finnmark to stock up on ikea stuff and furniture.
Crossing borders is quite informal throughout the EU. There are ski centers in the Alps, where you can cross the border on skis without even realizing it many times a day.
At least between Schengen countries
True altho the nordics open borders predates Schengen iirc altho im sure its still not unique
Finland and Sweden are kind of like siblings. They like to tease each other yet they love each other. (this coming from a Finn living in Sweden)
And every time we swedes visit finland i have learned to ask politety in the hotel reception if they speak swedish. ("Talar ni svenska" på finlandssvenska, eller "pratar ni svenska") Finlandssvenska är ursprungssvenskan från Sverige. Finlandsvenskan säger aderton. I Sverige kallas den svenskan för "gammalsvenska" I Sverige säger vi arton. Regarding receptionist, they usually do Swedish, but do remember that is very difficult for a finn to learn swedish. In Finland it is mandatory to learn swedish. Most people in Finland speak english The finns are cleaner, they have saunas in the hotel rooms, and they have muikku. Dont forget to eat the Berlusconi pizza
at Koti Pizza! It won a price in italy!
@@thomasraden3793 NUH UH, SVERIGE HAR ÄGT FINLAND
Finns are cleaner, sa du verkligen det? Finnar är renligare. Är själv halvfinsk men om finnar är renligare för att de alla har bastu, det vet jag inte 😅@@thomasraden3793
@@thomasraden3793Its not harder than learning English for a Finn. People just dont like to learn it because its mandatory and not as useful like English
nah fuck sweden
The border is just 20 meters outside the shopping center. The square there is called Victoriatorget after the swedish crown princess Victoria. It's a square common with both Finland and Sweden. If you look at 3:21 you see a thin square arch to the right of the shopping center, thats the border that runs alongside the shopping center. At new years eve you can celebrate the first new years eve in Finland, then walk a few meters to celebrate it again in Sweden as Finland has one hour later timezone than Sweden.
Thanks for sharing! Are there any traditions related to this and new years?
you can also see where the border is by looking at the snow becouse the ground is heated on Finlands side of Vicktoriatoget
@@lukasbus1175 Interesting info. I heard there is an interest to build a shopping center on the swedish side where it is now just nothing
@@Morlyst Celebrate new years twice. As the dates are differen between Sweden and Finland.
@@thomasraden3793 There was a plan to build the shopping centre but iirc it went backrupt. They have now started to fill in the hole they have dug there.
Finland built a huge lighthouse on an island, shared by Sweden and Finland. Oops, they built it on the Swedish side! War? Nah, we just redrew the border on that island. Easy as that! Looks weird on the map if you're not from around here. :-)
that was a fascinating story 👍. I had to look up the details.
Built in 1885, the building was always considered Finish, and operated by Finland.
It remained on the Swedish side of the border for 100 years, until it was changed in 1985.
Märket lighthouse on the Åland sea. Actually the builder was russian empire, which Finland was a part of back then.
@@Ah01 Finland had autonomy during Russian rule, it was our own senate which accepted the lighthouse to be build. The architect and the builders of the lighthouse were Finns.
I'm Swedish but haven't been to this border myself so it was nice to see.
Regarding the currency: The basic unit is called 1 krona (plural: kronor). However, when speaking English we often do what the cashier did and call it "crowns" instead (which is really just a literal translation).
Good to know! It's fun visiting European countries that still have their own currency.
@@tomgoesnomad historically speaking, it wasn't that long since we changed from the old currency called "Riksdaler" to Kronor, think I saw at some point that the conversion rate was 1 to 25 (1 Riksdaler was worth 25 kronor).
5:03 Whenever you see SEK, it stands for "Svenska kronor or Swedish crowns.
Edit: changed SEK to it's correct meaning.
@@SvengelskaBlondie Hate to be pedantic, but SE in SEK is just the "country code". So SvEnska Kronor
@@peterohanraha-hanrahan5097 nah, mate. It's alright (you are not being pedantic), gonna fix my comment
@@peterohanraha-hanrahan5097 And in Norway it is NOrske Kroner NOK.
I'm really impressed of your pronounciation of 'sisään' 😄 That was perfect
You can go to Norway just like that.
But not from Tornio ;)
I don't believe there are any twin-cities on the Finish-Norwegian border, like Tornio-Haparanda.
Utsjoki is similarly close to the Finish-Norwegian border, but you won't find a lot (except nature, and a highway) on the Norwegian side.
Cross in the wilderness area during a hike, though, and summon the border patrol out of nowhere inquiring what's your business in Norway.
@@beastman83532det er vel mest sansynlig ved tre rikstøysa mellom Norge., Finland og Russland tor der er det ikke tillatt å krysse grensa til Russland
It's so easy to cross all of the nordic countries because they are all sibling countries. They were all more or less part of each other at one point. Scandinavia was ofc all Vikings splitting up at the end, forming their own countries. Finland was part of Sweden for a long time and eventually became their own. But Sweden and Finland probably has THE biggest brother/sister relationship of any country in the world. It's hard to describe for non Swedes/finns, but any Swede or Finn would understand that relationship. We jab at each other all the time, but you can't separate us at the end.
So more like 2 kids.
No, it's because of the Nordic Passport Union which precedes Schengen and didn't require any border agents or formalities at all because if you had already passed into the Nordic Passport Union you were in. This is the reason.
@@erik3371
Why did that "Nordic Passport Union" exist in the first place?
Brothers and sisters, awyeah ;D.
It is hard to explain why it would feel weird to have closed borders. Like, why?Sweden and Denmark have the world record of most wars fought between two states - we got tired of it centuries ago. Norwegians can do their grocery shopping in Sweden, Swedes and Finns are so intermarried we are basically all cousins, Swedes and Danes share a metropolitan area around the Öresund bridge.
@@MegaBanne Well there's lots of shared history between these countries, but since that agreement was done in 1952 it was probably quite a different world compared to today.
I live in Finland and have Norwegien friend, Eilev who has been in Finland a dozen times, see while he was serving in Norwegian border guard the guys had a habit to go to a big border stone standing where the the borders of Sweden, Finland and Norway join and run circles around the stone. They were armed guards from one contry crossing from one country to another😊 no fuss no pasports no permits just fun, try doing that on the eastern border of Finland…
The sun just barely peeking above the horizon: "Awww hell naaa!"
During one hiking trip me and my wife walked from Norway to Sweden, then from Sweden to Finland and finally from Finland back to Norway.
Så dere gikk rundt treriksrøsa da.😂
@@leif-kareeikeland5209 Basically yes, but not only on the little island around the cairn. We left our car in Signaldalen, hiked toGappohytta and slept there. Then we hiked to Pältsätuga and Pältsä waterfall. From there we hiked to Kuohkimajärvi, spent two nights there and hiked via Goldahytta to the top of Bárrás, slept one night on the slope of Bárrás and hiked back to our car.
Haha, when I found this video I thought "Trying to walk.. Trying? It's no need to try, you just walk! No problem!" 😁 If I'm ever moving from Sweden, I'm going for Finland. Maybe just not as far north 😅 (I lived in a town called Boden in Sweden before, and the Ikea closest there is Haparanda, so I've been shopping there. Now I live in Stockholm and really prefer a bit more daylight during the winters)
The boarder is known as "the most peacefull boarder in the world", which is true.
boarder
/ˈbɔːdə/
noun
1.
a person who receives regular meals when staying somewhere, in return for payment or services.
2.
a person who forces their way on to a ship in an attack.
In the Nordic countries this has been normal for ages. Back in 1979, I was coming on a train from Denmark to Sweden and as usual, the border controls came and asked for passports, I didn't care to dig out my passport so I just said to them "Finländare" (Finnish in Swedish language), nothing else. They didn't bother me after that, they just asked the other people for their passports.
'I don't know anything about ABBA' and then proceeds to sing two of their songs with correct tune and lyrics 👍
Well... considering the impact of ABBA on the human collective consciousness, this could be said to constitute the lowest level of knowledge of ABBA, and thus be equated to "nothing". No? ;-)
3:09 the border is literally seen in the ground man.... Finnish side the square has ground heating and Swedish side is covered with snow. 3:16 that sign located already in Sweden...
I don't believe he was unaware of where the border is. It's more about trying to say there's little to tell you there is a border unless you know it's there.
While crossing under E4, joking about not knowing the country, he must have known, because it would have been obvious while he was using Google Maps.
this brings back good memories. I used to live in Kemi for a short while in Finland, and almost every weekend I would head up to Tornio and spend the day either there or across the border. It is good to see its still as beautiful as ever
i live in tornio and this was joy to watch
It's been that easy since 1952. Citizen in the Nordic countries are Nordic citizens so we have been crossing the Nordic borders without any passport and almost no border controls since 1952. And it was the same before WW1.
Summer 2022, my family and I drove from Eskilstuna (around 100km west of Stockholm) to Oulu, Finland. We stopped at the exact same Hotel (Hotelli Olof) as you! Obviously it was at summer so the weather was nice and bright. It was the first time I actually stayed awake since it's a long drive (about 1100km). I got shocked about the whole no border thing. And also got shocked that nearly every store on the Swedish side had shelves upon shelves of Snus (a Swedish type tobacco).
Hotelli Olof seems to be the place to stay in Tornio. It was super packed on the Sunday I visited for a free cuppa!
Finnish people go to Haaparanta to buy Nuuska (Snus). Because it is illegal to sell or buy in Finland but is legal to have it.
you forgot the part about you meeting a gaming friend in tornio....
Oh yes, his name is Edvin. Really nice guy, you should meet him.
I like how you can take your car with you on the train!
I used to live about 400 m from that border. In true swedish fashion we mostly crossed it to have a few drinks, keeping up the bad reputation, as is our holy duty.
In all seriousness, it was a very cool experience, and in true finnish fashion they used to have a kiosk right beyond the border that only took Euro, as a cheeky FU. I appreciate things like that.
They have in Ikea in Finland aswell, a lot of countries has IKEA these days.
Nice video. Did you know that there is a golf course in Tornio-Haaparanta which is partly in Finland and partly in Sweden. It's about 2km north from that shopping center. By the way, Haaparanta is Finnish and means literally "Aspen shore".
I don't believe the golf course is open in the winter, though. He would need to come back next summer.
@@herrakaarme I'm sure too that it's closed. But it's a really unique place and fun to know it exists.
I saw it on the map but didn't realise it was across the border. It could be fun to whack a golf ball into another country.
@@tomgoesnomad yes and if you whack it from sweden to finland the golf ball will land an hour later :)
Why would anyone want to cross to Sweden lol
That's actually hilarious, the first thing you see after crossing the border is an Ikea lol
Hey Tom! Great to see this! Slightly easier compared to crossing border from Argentina into Chile I had to do few days ago 😇
Haparanda is in Swedish Lapland. Lapland is not just in Finland.
I think he knows that, considering he told the cashier he was "exploring lapland" while literally in Haparanda.
Haparanda is in Norrbotten, while Torneo is in Lapland. The border between the Swedish side of Lapland and the Finnish side is further north.
I have done that several times, because of traveling with animals in the car not allowed over the border (Rabies shots required Finland to Sweden). Never been any issues.
Nice! im long hauling goods from sundsvall to haparanda a few times a week. Been walking over the bridge a lot of times while on my 9 hour break
I used to cross the border every morning and afternoon for over two years back when I was studying in Tornio. I drove whilst iiving in Kalix and when I later on moved to Haparanda i used to ride my bike or walk. As a student I was no stranger to parties either, and on weekends I crossed drunk on several occations. Over the years the border guards only stopped me once, while driving to school. A couple of years after exam they closed the border check all together. "The twin cities" surely live up to their name!
These days I travel to Tornio once in a while to stock up on licorice and finnish sausages.
Thanks for this, very interesting to see my (rather boring) hometown in a documentary-like video. To get the authentic border experience, you should go to Nuuskakaira and smuggle some snus to Finland side (and be afraid of the customs).
In case you didn't know Lappland is in both sweden and finland, covering the whole northern area, it's not just in finland :)
Not as many Finnish shoppers in Haparanda on a Sunday since the most popular destination is closed on Sundays.
Cheap for Finns to go shopping in Haparanda Sweden. For one € you get almost twelve Swedish crowns. 😊
Pretty cool to see, as I've never been to myself ☺
Before WWII, there was no border controls in the north, between Norway Sweden and Finland.
Eh, there's Lappland on the Swedish side, too. Besides, I've been to a number of just as unassuming border crossings as this one.
They arent uncommon in europe these days. Basically any border in central or Western europe will be fairly open.
Want to see a really cool border? Baarle Hertog/Baarle Nassau Netherlands/Belgium
I’ve wanted to visit the north for years but never get around to it. I live in southern Sweden and it is almost a 24 hour drive to get to the north.
If you live in Malmö it's a 19 hour drive to Haparanda
I have crossed the border walking, biking and on a bus. Sweden is where drivers are polite.
Nice video. My grand mother used to live in Tornio.
What an amazing video!
It feels so strange to see my home town in a youtube video. But Tornio is indeed unique for the free crossing. Some people travel to Tornio from afar just so that they can get to Sweden and buy a ton of snus. Snus is a type of tobacco that you place under your lip, nasty stuff, but some folks are into it.
snus is life, the black gold!
Snus is wonderful, says I who never use tobacco. However, there is no such sting as passive use of snus so in that respect it is far, far superior to cigarrettes to the non-smoker!
Snus is the worst thing ever invented. I hate it. Cant understand what people like about it. It taste horrible and its just wrong! But then again, we live in a free country and we like different things. :)
@@erikstenviken2652 nu pratar du i nattmössan pojk! snus kan ju vara det bästa som hänt sen jesus.
Its very bad and a very stupid thing to be using with no positive effects at all. A very bad habit
Did you know.if you play golf in Tornio you Can play golf across border to sweden😮
Just happened to find this video; first thought
- Reflective gear! (vest/bands on legs/etc) A lot of it! Should work in Finland as well....
It is really nothing special about the Swedish-Finnish border, it is the same everywhere in the Schengen area, which UK of course never was a part of.
I have crossed the border on foot too, but some 450 km further north! (Hiking from Kilpisjärvi to the three countries SWE-FIN-NOR meeting point)
Add to that, the Nordic Passport Union which has been in place since the 1950s. (1952 - open borders, no passport needed, 1954 - free movement for residence/work, 1958 - passport checks for non-citizens also removed)
well, if you look at Estonian - Finnish border, you see a lot more control going on; Police and Tax. I drive throughout the EU sometimes and see the same situation especially from Slovakia into Poland, and Lithuania into Poland.
I always lose immersion whenever I see a wide angle shot and the single person walking by, realizing they would have had to set it all up, and then come back for the camera once they've passed it.
could possibly use a drone too, but yes I find it kind of distracting too, but I usually just let it go to not ruin too much.
I live 50 km away from this place and we go there often
How border crossing works in the civilized part of the world.
ah ys, dear haparanda and torneå, have crossed there many times, nothing but happy memories there
i have done this walk at 11pm, in the snow and rain, without a signal on my phone it was fun (maybe not)
Coop and Max in the background are sure signs of being on the Swedish side, Ikea not so much. Also traffic signs are slightly different.
I´m glad that You didn't have to stroll too long in to the car traffic
I got stopped by the border polis when I crossed and they asked "where are you heading, from". What does he mean...
- Stockholm I answered...
- Are you heading to Stockholm? (going to Torino makes no sense)
- No no, to Grense, Norway.
We have Ikeas in Finland too! (Though not anywhere near there.)
Fun fact that's the most nordic IKEA in the world.
Fun fact: Lappland is a region that extends across the border. So your comment “I’m going back to Finland because I have more of Lappland to explore” makes no sense!
You were still in Lappland in Sweden.
No, Haparanda on the Swedish side is in Norrbotten, while Torneo is in Lapland. Swedish Lapland starts much further north along the border.
Impressive and i some way weird to dont see daylight so long
Well, go little bit north from there and you don't see sunlight in about two months. And then again, you don't have dark in the summer.
@@NightwishArena even here in southern Finland the duration of sunlight is only 6 hours 30 minutes currently 😅 People go to work/school when its dark and when they are coming home the sun goes down
Odd thing to make a widea about. You can cross the border by foot or riding a bike, whatever. Just like crossing a border from Netherlands to Belgium etc., just a sign saying that you have crossed the border. That is called schengen area.
I cross the border routinely to buy cheaper gasoline from Sweden, whenever I happen to drive there.
I have crossed that border by car many times. My great grandmother lived not far from the border on the Swedish side and so my grandfather and I would drive over to Finland to buy candy and then head back.
Why did you buy candy in Finland and not Sweden?
@@leob4403 First of all I realized that I was actually thinking of another border crossing much further north, not this one. Secondly, I am not really sure. I think there was a store just across the border that had some candy I liked that was not available in Sweden.
its really funny how the accent changed so much when u went to ikea from the finnish side
I cycled through there last summer, was such a nice town
You should now try walking to Norway from Sweden ;)
The world should be easy to travel between borders like it used to be free and easily, countries are an idea, idea's should not dictate where people can go, every person has a right to travel this earth freely.
Btw you are not really in Lapland yet when you are in Tornio, usually people consider Rovaniemi to be the most southern point where you can start calling it Lapland but even then you have quite the way to go north if you look at the map
nah
Good content bro, you deserve more views
And this was already decades before the EU - the Nordic passport union, you can freely emigrate across the borders
Crossing borders within the EU is like, going from one province to the other or one state to the other. The only thing that change are some local laws, the language and the license plates :)
In one episode of "Big bang theory" Sheldon is learning Finnish and when somebody knock on the door he says "Sisään"
You should have try to show your passport to some random swede 🙂
Well, pass the border by foot between Norway/Finland/Sweden is as hard as you let it get :) Walking over the border from Sweden to Denmark is a pretty long walk over a bridge so thats hard only because of that 😁 Between Norway and Denmark… well, I hope you like swimming 😉 Because taking a boat is not walking. But just as you noticed its very undramatic to pass the Nordic borders:)
As a Finn, you notice that you've crossed the border when you see the Swedes signal wrongly in the roundabout that you drive to right after the border crossing.They signal to the left until they leave the roudabout, whereas the Finns signal to the right only when they leave it. Swedes will contest this, but your way is absolutely the wrong way to do it lol.
4:20 I love how you said "In Gang" instead of "Ingong"
great video :)
Glad you enjoyed it :)
Scandinavians trust each other so much that even their border crossing basically doesn't exist because all of them know they wouldn't harm one another.
But outside of that hemisphere...
Awesome Beautiful for me ❤️ I want to be there
Fajny filmik =)
The cashier at the IKEA passed the vibe check
Good vibes in IKEA café even if you're not buying furniture.
I assume you got checked at the border to Finland. We trust that they are capable and don’t let in any dodgy people and we trust the Finnish people coming over. What’s the point of a border? 😊🇸🇪❤️🇫🇮
That was before the immigration crisis...now there would definitely be a need for border, but of course nothing will be done until it's too late
There is security believe me! I have been pulled over/put through questioning many times! Had drug dogs sniff me and etc.
Super trooper calling Tommy Cooper
you do not translate the name of currencies that I often hear swedes speaking english do. So it is is still Kronor not crowns. :)
Yeah you could just take a side road even in the pandemic times and nobody would check those
Now thats an easy border. Next try the one at east lol
It’s like that all over the Schengen-area (of the EU) in Continental Europe. One union 🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺
there are many "bordercrossings" into sweden/out of sweden that are unguarded or unmanned both over to finland (a other EU country) and I guess into norway (a non cgengen/no eu member). It is a HUGE border running way out in the wilderness (in the mountains and deep forest and noone really lives there) - and as other pointed out there has for VERY long before EU been a agreement of the nordic countries that we can travel there without passports and even have the RIGHT to use our naitive tounge in contact with goverment (ie speaking finnish in sweden, or on Iceland when talking to the police for example) - except for finnish (the non swedish speakers) and icelandic communication isnt impossible if both sides try to make themselves understood and speak slowly and clearly (finnish isnt the same germanic language as the rest of the nordic languages and more related to estonian and hungarian even is many people speaks a swedish dialect long the coast, and icelandic is as close as we are goning to get to the viking way of talking in the modern world)
Finland and Sweden was one country for 700 years until Russia annexed Finland in the war of 1809.
Yes, there's even a special coin that commemorated the 200 year anniversary of Sweden losing Finland to Russia.
It is actually stupid that it so easy to cross the border there. A lot of drugs come from Sweden to Finland, and many Finnish people are willing to take stupid risk by bringing more snuff than is allowed. It's not legal to sell snuff in Finland, but we have a lot of people who are using it. So if you live far from the border, it is tempting to bring more than is allowed, because you probably don't get caught. But if you do, you can get pretty big fine...or if you are bringing a loads of it, you can end up in jail. Some are even willing to take that bigger risk and sell it here.
In the past, a lot of the drug came in from Russia through Finland, I've heard. Don't know how it is these days!? Regardless, Finland is perceived more like Russia than Sweden. At least my experience after traveling around both countries. So it feels a bit more rural than Sweden. Sweden more modern and people are a little nicer, nicer clothes too.
@@niki7040you must be trolling, finland was integral part of sweden for 700 years, and 100 years autonimical part of the russian empire. Finland is a free liberal democracy and is pretty much like sweden.
@@revolverlynx8150 You miss my point. I know that Finland was part of Sweden, hence the city of Vasa! I'm talking about Finland feeling like they're a little "after", a little country feeling. And that Finns seem to be so serious and almost a little humorless. But I could be wrong...
@@niki7040Finland is nothing like Russia. Finland is a modern Nordic and western country.
By the way Finland has been ranked the best country by World economic Forum conference in Switzerland Davos 2019 and the happiest country six times in a row 2018-2023.
Russia or any other Eastern European countries have never achieved that position.
All the Nordic countries are among the ten best and happiest countries.
@@niki7040You are so wrong 😂 I'm a Finn, but I have lived also in Sweden.
Finland and Sweden used to be the same country for about 800 years, until the Russians conquered Sweden in 1809 and claimed the eastern half of the country. So we're definitely pretty close still.
Rip that plan😢
i live in haparanda
the Nordic way 🙂
It's also because of EU. Open borders between EU countries was the original idea. Free movement of people and products. 😅
The 2 countries are friendly, but the reason there are no border controls is because we are both E.U. members. The E.U. has made borders easier to cross, but you folks from the UK were never part of the Schengen area, so even when you were in the EU, the English had border controls that most EU lands did not.
Technically speaking a non-EU citizen like Tom should have tried to find some border authority to show his passport before crossing the border, but i dunno if anybody really cares, especially if You look European (and do not speak Russian).
@@Ba_Yegu No. Anyone traveling in the Schengen Area is allowed to cross the internal borders without a passport, regardless where you are from. At very many crossings including this one, there is no border authority stationed.
Silly. Many of us crossed that border 30 years ago when nobody spoke a word of English. Now Tornio and Haparanda are full of resident ex pats 🤦🏻