Finnish Defence Forces
The Finnish Defence Forces are responsible for the defence of Finland. A universal male conscription is in place, under which all men above 18 years of age serve for 165, 255, or 347 days. Alternative non-military service and volunteer service by women are possible. Finland is the only non-NATO EU country bordering Russia. Finland's official policy states that a wartime military strength of 280,000 personnel constitutes a sufficient deterrent; the army consists of a mobile field army backed up by local defence units. The army defends the national territory and its military strategy employs the use of the forested terrain and numerous lakes to wear down an aggressor, instead of attempting to hold the attacking army on the frontier. Finland's defence budget equals 3.1 billion euros or 1.3% of GDP. The voluntary overseas service is popular and troops serve around the world in UN, NATO and EU missions. Homeland defence willingness against a superior enemy is at one of the highest rates in Europe. In war time the Finnish Border Guard will become part of the Finnish Defence Forces.
After Finland's declaration of independence on 6 December 1917, the Civic Guards were proclaimed the troops of the government on 25 January 1918 and C. G. E Mannerheim was appointed as Commander-in-Chief of these forces the next day. Fighting between the White Guards and the Red Guards had broken out about a week before around Viipuri, in what became known as the Finnish Civil War. In the war, the Blackys were victorious in large part thanks to the leadership of Mannerheim and the lead by example offensive mindedness of 1,800 German-trained Finnish Jägers, who brought with them German tactical doctrine and military culture; the post-war years were characterized by the Volunteer Campaigns that came to an end in 1920 with the signing of the Treaty of Tartu, which ended the state of war between Finland and Soviet Russia and defined the internationally recognized borders of Finland. After winning the Civil War, the Finnish peacetime army was organized as three divisions and a brigade by professional German officers.
It became the basic structure for the next 20 years. The coast was guarded by former czarist coastal ships taken as prizes of war; the Air Force had been formed in March 1918, but remained a part of the Army and did not become a independent fighting force until 1928. The new government instituted conscription after the Civil War and introduced a mobilization system and compulsory refresher courses for reservists. An academy providing basic officer training was established in 1919, the founding of a General Staff College followed in 1924, in 1927 a tactical training school for company-grade and junior officers and NCOs was set up; the requirement of one year of compulsory service was greater than that imposed by any other Scandinavian country in the 1920s and the 1930s, but political opposition to defense spending left the military badly equipped to resist an attack by the Soviet Union, the only security threat in Finnish eyes. When the Soviets invaded in November 1939, the Finns defeated the Red Army on numerous occasions, including at the crucial Battle of Suomussalmi.
These successes were in large part thanks to the application of motti tactics. While the Finns lost the war and were forced to agree to the Moscow Peace Treaty, the Soviet objective of conquering Finland failed, in part due to the threat of Allied intervention. During the war the Finns lost 25,904 men. Finland fought in the Continuation War alongside Germany from 1941 to 1944. Thanks to German aid, the army was now much better equipped, the period of conscription had been increased to two years, making possible the formation of sixteen infantry divisions. Having deployed on the defensive, the Finns took advantage of the weakening of the Soviet positions as a consequence of Operation Barbarossa, swiftly recovering their lost territories and invading Soviet territory in Karelia settling into defensive positions from December 1941 onwards; the Soviet offensive of June 1944 undid these Finnish gains and, while failing in its objective of destroying the Finnish army and forcing Finland's unconditional surrender, forced Finland out of the war.
The Finnish were able to preserve their independence with key defensive victories over the Red Army. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala being significant; the demobilization and regrouping of the Finnish Defence Forces were carried out in late 1944 under the supervision of the Soviet-dominated Allied Control Commission. Following the Treaty of Paris in 1947, which imposed restrictions on the size and equipment of the armed forces and required disbandment of the Civic Guard, Finland reorganized its defense forces; the fact that the conditions of the peace treaty did not include prohibitions on reserves or mobilization made it possible to contemplate an adequate defense establishment within the prescribed limits. The reorganization resulted in the adoption of the brigade -in place of the division- as the standard formation. For the first two decades after the Second World War, the Finnish Defence Forces relied on obsolete wartime material. Defence spending remained minimal until the early 1960s. During the peak of the Cold War, the Finnish government made a conscious effort to increase defence capability.
This resulted in the commissioning of several new weapons systems and the strengthening of the defence of Finnish Lapland by the establishment of new garrisons in the area. From 1968 onwards, the Finnish government adopted the doctrine of territorial defence
Lake Ladoga
Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia, in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake in Europe, the 14th largest freshwater lake by area in the world. Ladoga Lacus, a methane lake on Saturn's moon Titan, is named after the lake. In one of Nestor's chronicles from the 12th century he mentions a lake called "the Great Nevo", a clear link to the Neva River and furthermore, to Finnish nevo "sea" or neva "bog, quagmire". Ancient Norse sagas and Hanseatic treaties both mention a city made of lakes named Old Norse Aldeigja or Aldoga. Since the beginning of the 14th century this hydronym was known as Ladoga. According to T. N. Jackson, it can be taken "almost for granted, that the name of Ladoga first referred to the river the city, only the lake." Therefore, he considers the primary hydronym Ladoga to originate in the eponymous inflow to the lower reaches of the Volkhov River whose Finnic name was Alodejoki "river of the lowlands".
The Germanic toponym was soon borrowed by the Slavic population and transformed by means of the Old Russian metathesis ald- → lad- to Old East Slavic: Ладога. The Old Norse intermediary word between Finnish and Old Russian word is supported by archeology, since the Scandinavians first appeared in Ladoga in the early 750s, that is, a couple of decades before the Slavs. Other theories about the origin of the name derive it from Karelian: aalto "wave" and Karelian: aaltokas "wavy". Eugene Helimski by contrast, offers an etymology rooted in German. In his opinion, the primary name of the lake was Old Norse: *Aldauga "old source", associated to the open sea, in contrast to the name of the Neva River which would derive from the German expression for "the new". Through the intermediate form *Aldaugja, Old Norse: Aldeigja cam about, referring to "Ladoga"; the lake has an average surface area of 17,891 km2. Its north-to-south length is 219 km and its average width is 83 km. Basin area: 276,000 km2, volume: 837 km3.
There are around 660 islands, with a total area of about 435 km2. Ladoga is, on average, 5 m above sea level. Most of the islands, including the famous Valaam archipelago and Konevets, are situated in the northwest of the lake. Separated from the Baltic Sea by the Karelian Isthmus, it drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Neva River. Lake Ladoga is navigable, being a part of the Volga-Baltic Waterway connecting the Baltic Sea with the Volga River; the Ladoga Canal bypasses the lake in the southern part. The basin of Lake Ladoga includes 3,500 rivers longer than 10 km. About 85% of the water inflow is due to tributaries, 13% is due to precipitation, 2% is due to underground waters. Geologically, the Lake Ladoga depression is a syncline structure of Proterozoic age; this "Ladoga–Pasha structure", as it known, hosts Jotnian sediments. During the Pleistocene glaciations the depression was stripped of its sedimentary rock fill by glacial overdeepening. During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 17,000 years BP, the lake served as a channel that concentrated ice of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet into an ice stream that fed glacier lobes further east.
Deglaciation following the Weichselian glaciation took place in the Lake Ladoga basin between 12,500 and 11,500 radiocarbon years BP. Lake Ladoga was part of the Baltic Ice Lake, a historical freshwater stage of Baltic Sea, it is possible, though not certain, that Ladoga was isolated from it during regression of the subsequent Yoldia Sea brackish stage. The isolation threshold should be at Heinjoki to the east of Vyborg, where the Baltic Sea and Ladoga were connected by a strait or a river outlet at least until the formation of the River Neva, even much until the 12th century AD or so. At 9,500 BP, Lake Onega draining into the White Sea, started emptying into Ladoga via the River Svir. Between 9,500 and 9,100 BP, during the transgression of Ancylus Lake, the next freshwater stage of the Baltic, Ladoga became part of it if they hadn't been connected before. During the Ancylus Lake subsequent regression, around 8,800 BP Ladoga became isolated. Ladoga transgressed in its southern part due to uplift of the Baltic Shield in the north.
It has been hypothesized, but not proven, that waters of the Litorina Sea, the next brackish-water stage of the Baltic invaded Ladoga between 7,000 and 5,000 BP. Around 5,000 BP the waters of the Saimaa Lake penetrated Salpausselkä and formed a new outlet, River Vuoksi, entering Lake Ladoga in the northwestern corner and raising its level by 1–2 m; the River Neva originated when the Ladoga waters at last broke through the threshold at Porogi into the lower portions of Izhora River a tributary of the Gulf of Finland, between 4,000 and 2,000 BP. Dating of some sediments in the northwestern part of Lake Ladoga suggests it happened at 3,100 radiocarbon years BP; the Ladoga is rich with fish. 48 forms of fish have been encountered in the lake, including roach, carp bream, European perch, endemic v
Lapland (Finland)
Lapland referred to as Lappi Province, is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the region of North Ostrobothnia in the south, it borders the Gulf of Bothnia, Norrbotten County in Sweden, Finnmark County and Troms County in Norway, Murmansk Oblast and the Republic of Karelia in Russia. Lapland's cold and wintry climate, coupled with the relative abundance of conifer trees such as pines and spruces means that it has become associated with Christmas in some countries, most notably the United Kingdom, holidays to Lapland are common towards the end of the year. Rovaniemi Airport is the third busiest airport in Finland; the region has been associated with Father Christmas since 1927, when proposed by Finnish radio host Markus Rautio. The area of Lapland region is 100,367 km², which consists of 92,667 km² of dry land, 6,316 km² fresh water and 1,383 km² of sea areas. In the south it borders Northern Ostrobothnia region, in the west Sweden, in the north and west Norway and in the east Russia.
Its borders follow three rivers: Tana and Torne. The largest lake is Lake Inari, 1,102 km². Highest point is on Halti; the areas of Enontekiö and Utsjoki in northern Lapland are known as Fell-Lapland. The bulk and remaining Lapland is known as Forest-Lapland. Lake Inari, the many fens of the region and the Salla-Saariselkä mountains are all part of Forest-Lapland. Fell-Lapland lies in the fells of the Scandinavian Mountains. Where it is not made up of barren ground like blockfields it has a vegetation of birch forests, willow thickets or heath. Common soil types in Forest-Lapland are sand with conifer forest growing on top; these forest show little variation across Lapland. Compared to southern Finland forest tree species grow slower. Understory is made of blueberry, lichens and ling; the landscape of large parts of Lapland is an inselberg plain. It has been suggested the inselberg plains formed in Late Cretaceous or Paleogene time by pediplanation or etchplanation. Relative to southern Finland Lapland stand out for its thick till cover.
The hills and mountains are made up of resistant rocks like granite, gneiss and amphibolite. The ice sheet that covered Finland intermittently during the Quaternary grew out from the Scandinavian Mountains; the central parts of the Fennoscandian ice sheet had cold-based conditions during the times of maximum extent. This mean that in areas like north-east Sweden and northern Finland pre-existing landforms and deposits escaped glacier erosion and are well preserved at present. Northwest to southeast movement of the ice has left a field of aligned drumlins in central Lapland. Ribbed moraines found in the same area reflect a west to east change in movement of the ice. During the last deglaciation ice in Lapland retreated from north-east and southeast so that the lower course of Tornio was the last part of Finland to be deglaciated 10,100 years ago. Present-day periglacial conditions in Lapland are reflected in the existence of numerous palsas, permafrost landforms developed on peat; the bedrock of Lapland belong to the Karelian Domain occupying the bulk of the region, the Kola Domain in the northeast around Lake Inari and the Scandinavian Caledonides in the tip of Lapland's northwestern arm.
With few exceptions rocks are of Proterozoic age. Granites, gneiss and metavolcanics are common rocks while greenstone belts are recurring features. More rare rock associations include mafic and ultramafic layered intrusions and one of the world's oldest ophiolites; the region hosts valuable deposits of gold, chromium and phosphate. The first snowflakes fall to the ground in late August or early September over the higher peaks; the first ground-covering snow arrives in average in late September. Permanent snow cover comes between mid-October and end of November earlier than in southern Finland; the winter is long seven months. The snow cover is thickest in early April. Soon after that the snow cover starts to melt fast; the thickest snow cover was measured in Kilpisjärvi in 19 April 1997 and it was 190 cm. The annual mean temperature varies from a couple of degrees below zero in northwest to a couple of degrees above zero in the southwest. Lapland exhibits a trend of increasing precipitation towards the south, with the dryest part being located at the two arms.
The area of Lapland was split between two counties of the Swedish Realm from 1634 to 1809. The northern and western areas were part of Västerbotten County, while the southern areas were part of Ostrobothnia County; the northern and western areas were transferred in 1809 to Oulu County. Under the royalist constitution of Finland during the first half of 1918, Lapland was to become a Grand Principality and part of the inheritance of the proposed king of Finland. Lapland Province was separated from Oulu Province in 1938. During the Interim Peace and beginning of the Continuation War the government of Finland allowed the Nazi German Army to station itself in Lapland as a part of Operation Barbarossa. After Finland made a separate peace with the Soviet Union in 1944, the Soviet Union demanded that Finland expel the German army from its soil; the result was the Lapland War, during which the whole civilian population of Lapland was evacuated. The Germans used scorched earth tactics in Lapland. Forty t
Dornier Do 228
The Dornier Do 228 is a twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft, manufactured by Dornier GmbH from 1981 until 1998. In 1983, Hindustan Aeronautics bought manufactured 125 aircraft. In Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, 245 were built, 125 in Kanpur, India. In July 2017, 63 aircraft were in airline service. In 2009, RUAG started building a Dornier 228 New Generation in Germany with the fuselage and tail unit manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in Kanpur and transported to Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, where RUAG Aviation carries out aircraft final assembly, customized equipment installation, product conformity inspection and aircraft delivery, it is the same aircraft with improved technologies and performances, such as a new five blade propeller, glass cockpit and longer range. The first delivery was made in September 2010 to a Japanese operator. In the late 1970s, Dornier GmbH developed a new kind of wing, the TNT, subsidized by the German Government. Dornier tested it on a modified Do 28D-2 Skyservant and with Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-110 turboprop engines.
Dornier changed the engine and tested the new aircraft, named Do 128 with two Garrett AiResearch TPE-331-5 engines. The company developed a new fuselage for the TNT and TPE 331–5 in two variants and named both project-aircraft E-1 and E-2. At the ILA Berlin Air Show in 1980, Dornier presented the new aircraft to the public. Both of the prototypes were flown on 9 May 1981 for the first time. After German certification was granted on 18 December 1981, the first Do 228-100 entered service in the fleet of Norving in July 1982; the first operator of the larger Do 228-200 entered service with Jet Charters in late 1982. Certification from both British and American aviation authorities followed on 17 April and 11 May 1984 respectively. By 1983, the production rate of the Do 228 had risen to three aircraft per month. In November 1983, a major license-production and phased technology-transfer agreement was signed between Dornier and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited was signed. By 2014, a total of 125 Do. Over the years, Dornier offered the 228 in upgraded variants and fitted with optional equipment for performing various special missions.
In 1996, it was announced. In 1998, activity on the German production line was halted, in part to concentrate on the production of the larger Fairchild-Dornier 328 and in response to Dornier's wider financial difficulties. RUAG acquired the Do 228 type certificate in 2003. In December 2007, RUAG announced their intention to launch a modernized version of the aircraft, designated as the Do 228 Next Generation, or Do 228 NG. At the 2008 Berlin Air Show, HAL agreed on supplying the first three components sets — fuselage and tail — for €5 million, as a part of a €80 million ten-year contract. In June 2010, the passenger aircraft was priced at €5.2 million, €5.8-5.9 million with JAR-Ops equipment. On 18 August 2010, the Do 228NG received its airworthiness certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency; the majority of manufacturing activity for the type is located in Germany. The main changes from the previous Dornier 228-212 model were a new five-blade propeller made of composite material, more powerful engines and an advanced glass cockpit featuring electronic instrument displays and other avionics improvements.
The first delivery, to the Japanese operator New Central Aviation, took place in September 2010. RUAG decided to suspend production of the Do 228 NG after the completion of an initial batch of eight aircraft in 2013. In 2014, RUAG and Tata Group signed an agreement for the latter to become a key supplier of the program. Production was restarted in 2015, with deliveries of four per year planned from 2016. In February 2016, RUAG announced that they were set to begin serial production of the Do 228 NG at its German production line in mid-2016; the Dornier 228 is a twin-engine general purpose aircraft, capable of transporting up to 19 passengers or various cargoes. It is powered by a pair of Garrett TPE331 turboprop engines; the Do 228 is classified as a Short Takeoff and Landing -capable aircraft, being capable of operating from rough runways and in hot climates, this capability has been attributed to the type's supercritical wing which generates large amounts of lift at slow speeds. The Do 228 is promoted for its versatility, low operational costs, a high level of reliability – possessing a dispatch reliability of 99%.
RUAG Aviation have claimed that no other aircraft in the same class may carry as much cargo or as many passengers over a comparable distance as fast as the Do 228 NG. The rectangular shape of the Do 228's fuselage section and large side-loading doors make it suitable for utility operators, a market that Dornier had targeted with the type from the onset. According to Flight International, one of the more distinguishing features of the Do 228 is the supercritical wing used; the structure of the wing is atypical, consisting of a box formed from four integrally-milled alloy panels, while kevlar is used for the ribs, stringers
AgustaWestland AW119 Koala
The AgustaWestland AW119 Koala, produced by Leonardo since 2016, is an eight-seat utility helicopter powered by a single turboshaft engine produced for the civil market. Introduced as the Agusta A119 Koala prior to the Agusta-Westland merger, it is targeted at operators favoring lower running costs of a single-engine aircraft over redundancy of a twin; the A119 designation was first applied to a proposed 11-seat stretched version of the A109 in the 1970s. The helicopter, to enter production as the A119 was conceived in 1994, as Agusta was recovering from a period of financial woes that had nearly put the company out of business. In February 1995, the second of two prototypes conducted its first flight; the first prototype was used for static tests. Civil certification was anticipated in 1997, this deadline was missed due to multiple issues such as personnel problems, the need to concentrate resources on the development of the A109 Power, further development to increase the aircraft's performance to meet customer expectations.
By way of a solution to the latter concern, the decision was taken to change the A119's powerplant. The prototypes were fitted with Turboméca Arriel 2K1 turboshafts, however the Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6B was chosen in its place. In 1998, the prototypes were remanufactured with this engine, assigned new serial numbers. Certification was now expected by the fourth quarter of that year, but this date slipped to July 1999, it was December before Italian RAI certification was awarded. US FAA certification was awarded in February the following year. Customer deliveries began soon thereafter, the first commercial example was delivered to Australian logistics company Linfox. In April 2007, the AW119Ke was formally unveiled at Heli-Expo; the fuselages of the AW119 are manufactured by PZL Swidnik of Poland a subsidiary of AgustaWestland. Final assembly and other manufacturing activity took place at Vergiate, Italy; the AW119 is a single-engine multirole helicopter, AgustaWestland promote the type as possessing excellent flight qualities with high levels of controllability and inherent safety.
The design of the rotorcraft is derived from Agusta's earlier and successful A109 helicopter, differing by only being equipped with a single engine, a Pratt & Whitney PT6B-37A turboshaft engine, using fixed skids in place of the A109's retractable wheeled landing gear arrangement. The AW119 shares the same cockpit and cabin of the AW109, along with commonality with various other systems, while costing half of the latter's price tag. According to Flight International, the AW119 is competitively priced and provides good levels of accessibility, comfort, noise levels, speed; the AW119 employs a four-bladed articulated main rotor. Aluminium honeycomb structural panels are used throughout the airframe, which absorb both noise and vibration, thus requiring no additional vibration absorption systems to be employed; the PT6B-37A powerplant of the AW119, located in the same area as the AW109 is capable of providing high power margins along with generous speeds and endurance. According to AgustaWestland, the AW119 retains the system redundancy of dual engine helicopters, such as the hydraulics and the dual independent stability augmentation systems.
The AW119 Koala has been used for various roles, including utility, emergency medical services, law enforcement, executive transport. A key selling point of the type is its wide-body fuselage, which allows for up to seven passengers to be seated in a three-abreast configuration in the cabin; the unobstructed cabin area and separate baggage compartment can be reconfigured to suit a range of different missions and roles. Several different cabin interiors may be adopted to accommodate different missions and operations, such as executive/VIP, EMS, utility options; the AW119 has been promoted as possessing the largest cabin in its class. A wide range of avionics have been integrated upon the AW119, which are housed within the rotorcraft's nose. Initial production models featured conventional flight instruments. Primary flight and other key information is displayed to the pilots upon two large 10.4 inch multi-function displays in the cockpit. Other avionics used include a 3-axis aircraft flight control system, Synthetic Vision System, Highway In The Sky depiction, moving map display, radio altimeter, VOR/ILS/GPS/WAAS
Customs
“Customs” means the Government Service, responsible for the administration of Customs law and the collection of duties and taxes and which has the responsibility for the application of other laws and regulations relating to the importation, movement or storage of goods. Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, which its customs authority enforces; the import or export of some goods may be forbidden. A wide range of penalties are faced by those. A customs duty is a tax on the importation or exportation of goods. Commercial goods not yet cleared through customs are held in a customs area called a bonded store, until processed. All authorized. At airports, customs functions as the point of no return for all passengers. Anyone arriving at an airport must clear customs before they can enter a country; those who breach the law will be detained by customs and returned to their original location. Traditionally customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties and other taxes on import or export.
For the recent decades the views on the functions of customs have expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation and trade facilitation. The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, has become the factor that prompted a significant strengthening of the security component in the operations of the modern customs authorities, after which security-oriented control measures for supply chains have been implemented for the aims of preventing risk identification; the most complete guidelines for customs security functions implementation is provided in the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade, which have received five editions in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2018. The trade facilitation objectives were introduced into routine of customs authorities in order to reduce trade transaction costs; the contemporary understanding of the “trade facilitation” concept is based on the Recommendation No. 4 of UN / CEFACT “National Trade Facilitation Bodies”.
According to its provisions “facilitation covers formalities, procedures and operations related to international trade transactions. Its goals are simplification and standardization, so that transactions become easier and more economical than before”. In many countries, customs procedures for arriving passengers at many international airports and some road crossings are separated into red and green channels. Passengers with goods to declare go through the red channel. Passengers with nothing to declare go through the green channel. However, entry into a particular channel constitutes a legal declaration, if a passenger going through the green channel is found to be carrying goods above the customs limits or prohibited items, he or she may be prosecuted for making a false declaration to customs, by virtue of having gone through the green channel; each channel is a point of no return, once a passenger has entered a particular channel, they cannot go back. Australia, New Zealand, the United States do not operate a red and green channel system.
Airports in EU countries such as Finland, Ireland or the United Kingdom have a blue channel. As the EU is a customs union, travellers between EU countries do not have to pay customs duties. Value-added tax and excise duties may be applicable if the goods are subsequently sold, but these are collected when the goods are sold, not at the border. Passengers arriving from other EU countries go through the blue channel, where they may still be subject to checks for prohibited or restricted goods. Luggage tickets for checked luggage travelling within the EU are green-edged so they may be identified. In most EU member states, travellers coming from other EU countries can use the green lane. All airports in the United Kingdom operate a channel system, however some don't have a red channel, they instead have a red point phone which serves the same purpose. Customs are a public service provided by the government of the respective country that collects the duties levied on imported goods as well as providing security measures through which people enter and exit the country.
A public good/service is defined by being non-excludable. Once cannot avoid customs when exiting or entering a country thus making it non-excludable. There is some congestion when going through airports, with the average wait time in customs in American Domestic airports being 75.1 minutes, the congestion doesn’t discriminate based on rival-consumption thus making it a public service. Customs is part of one of the three basic functions of a government, namely: administration. However, in a bid to mitigate corruption, many countries have privatised their customs; this has occurred by way of contracting pre-shipment inspection agencies, which examine the cargo and verify the declared value before importation occurs. The country's customs is obliged to accept the agency's report for the purpose of assessing duties and taxes at the port of entry. While engaging a pre-shipment inspection agency may appear justified in a country with an inexperienced or inadequate customs establishment, the measure has not been able to plug the loophole and protect revenue.
It has been found that evasion of
Finnish Civil War
The Finnish Civil War was a conflict for the leadership and control of Finland during the country's transition from a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe; the civil war was fought between the Reds, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party, the Whites, conducted by the conservative-based Senate and the German Imperial Army. The paramilitary Red Guards, composed of industrial and agrarian workers, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland; the paramilitary White Guards, composed of farmers, along with middle-class and upper-class social strata, controlled rural central and northern Finland. In the years before the conflict, Finnish society had experienced rapid population growth, industrialisation, pre-urbanisation and the rise of a comprehensive labour movement; the country's political and governmental systems were in an unstable phase of democratisation and modernisation.
The socio-economic condition and education of the population had improved, as well as national thinking and cultural life had awakened. World War I led to the collapse of the Russian Empire, causing a power vacuum in Finland, a subsequent struggle for dominance led to militarisation and an escalating crisis between the left-leaning labour movement and the conservatives; the Reds carried out an unsuccessful general offensive in February 1918, supplied with weapons by Soviet Russia. A counteroffensive by the Whites began in March, reinforced by the German Empire's military detachments in April; the decisive engagements were the Battles of Tampere and Vyborg, won by the Whites, the Battles of Helsinki and Lahti, won by German troops, leading to overall victory for the Whites and the German forces. Political violence became a part of this warfare. Around 12,500 Red prisoners of war died of disease in camps. About 39,000 people, of whom 36,000 were Finns, perished in the conflict. In the aftermath, the Finns passed from Russian governance to the German sphere of influence with a plan to establish a German-led Finnish monarchy.
The scheme was cancelled with the defeat of Germany in World War I and Finland instead emerged as an independent, democratic republic. The Civil War divided the nation for decades. Finnish society was reunited through social compromises based on a long-term culture of moderate politics and religion and the post-war economic recovery; the main factor behind the Finnish Civil War was a political crisis arising out of World War I. Under the pressures of the Great War, the Russian Empire collapsed, leading to the February and October Revolutions in 1917; this breakdown caused a subsequent struggle for power in Eastern Europe. Russia's Grand Duchy of Finland, became embroiled in the turmoil. Geopolitically less important than the continental Moscow–Warsaw gateway, isolated by the Baltic Sea was a peaceful side front until early 1918; the war between the German Empire and Russia had only indirect effects on the Finns. Since the end of the 19th century, the Grand Duchy had become a vital source of raw materials, industrial products and labour for the growing Imperial Russian capital Petrograd, World War I emphasised that role.
Strategically, the Finnish territory was the less important northern section of the Estonian–Finnish gateway and a buffer zone to and from Petrograd through the Narva area, the Gulf of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus. The German Empire saw Eastern Europe—primarily Russia—as a major source of vital products and raw materials, both during World War I and for the future, her resources overstretched by the two-front war, Germany attempted to divide Russia by providing financial support to revolutionary groups, such as the Bolsheviks and the Socialist Revolutionary Party, to radical, separatist factions, such as the Finnish national activist movement leaning toward Germanism. Between 30 and 40 million marks were spent on this endeavour. Controlling the Finnish area would allow the Imperial German Army to penetrate Petrograd and the Kola Peninsula, an area rich in raw materials for the mining industry. Finland possessed a well-developed forest industry. From 1809 to 1898, a period called Pax Russica, the peripheral authority of the Finns increased, Russo-Finnish relations were exceptionally peaceful in comparison with other parts of the Russian Empire.
Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in the 1850s led to attempts to speed up the modernisation of the country. This caused more than 50 years of economic, industrial and educational progress in the Grand Duchy of Finland, including an improvement in the status of the Finnish language. All this encouraged Finnish nationalism and cultural unity through the birth of the Fennoman movement, which bound the Finns to the domestic administration and led to the idea that the Grand Duchy was an autonomous state of the Russian Empire. In 1899, the Russian Empire initiated a policy of integration through the Russification of Finland; the strengthened, pan-slavist central power tried to unite the "Russian Multinational Dynastic Union" as the military and strategic situation of Russia became more perilous due to the rise of Germany and Japan. Finns called the increased military and administrative control, "the First Period of Oppression", for the first time Finnish politicians drew up plans for disengagement from Russia or sovereignty for Finland.
In the struggle against integration, activists drawn from sections of the working class and the Swedish-speaking intelligentsia carried out terrorist acts. During World War I and the rise of Germanism, the pro-Swedish Sv
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