Vainikkala
Vainikkala is a small village of approximately 400 inhabitants in South Karelia, Eastern Finland. It is part of the Lappeenranta municipality and is located about south of the city centre. Vainikkala is right on the Finnish border with Russia and the village's train station serves as an important checkpoint for Finnish border controls and customs. The train station is the junction for all passenger trains between Finland and Russia, though there are no ticket sales done in Vainikkala; the nearest ticket office is in Lappeenranta and the nearest ticket office for passage to or from Russia is in Lahti. The Allegro high-speed train service between Helsinki and Saint Petersburg stopped in Vainikkala several times per day until its discontinuation in 2022. In 2019, more than 656,000 people crossed the border at Vainikkala. The freight terminal makes Vainikkala an important node in trade between the EU and Russia. The largest employers in Vainikkala are VR, the Finnish state passen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Allegro (train)
Allegro was the brand name of a now defunct high-speed train service, owned by Karelian Trains as a joint venture between the Finnish VR Group and the Russian railway company Russian Railways and operated by Class Sm6 trains, between Helsinki, Finland, and St. Petersburg, Russia from 2010 to 2022. The train stopped at eight stations, of which six were in Finland and two in Russia. The trip from Helsinki to St. Petersburg took three and a half hours and the maximum speed of the train was 220 kilometres per hour. Because of the sanctions against Russia, the train services were stopped, until the VR Group announced on 14 December 2023 that it would acquire the entire rolling stock of Allegro to itself from Russian Railways after Russian Railways had neglected its duty towards Karelian Trains. The rolling stock of Allegro will be taken into use in domestic long-distance rail traffic in Finland during 2025. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lappeenranta
Lappeenranta (; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of South Karelia. It is located in the southeastern interior of the country and in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Lappeenranta is approximately , while the Lappeenranta sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is the most populous Municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland, and the 11th most populous List of urban areas in Finland by population, urban area in the country. Lappeenranta is located on the shore of Lake Saimaa, from the Finnish–Russian border, Russian border and from the city of Vyborg. Lappeenranta is one of the most important urban centres in the entire Saimaa region, together with the cities of Imatra, Mikkeli and Savonlinna. Lappeenranta incorporated the late municipalities of Lappee and Lauritsala in 1967, Nuijamaa in 1989, Joutseno in 2009 and Ylämaa in 2010. Lappeenranta, the region's tourism centre, is the second most visited city in Finland by Russians ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, on November 22, 1963. Oswald was placed in juvenile detention at age 12 for truancy, during which he was assessed by a psychiatrist as "emotionally disturbed" due to a lack of normal family life. He attended 12 schools in his youth, quitting repeatedly, and at age 17 he joined the Marines, where he was court-martialed twice and jailed. In 1959, he was discharged from active duty into the Marine Corps Reserve, then flew to Europe and defected to the Soviet Union. He lived in Minsk, married a Russian woman named Marina, and had a daughter. In June 1962, he returned to the United States with his wife, and eventually settled in Dallas, Texas, where their second daughter was born. Oswald shot and killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963, from a sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository as Kennedy traveled by moto ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frontline (American TV Program)
''Frontline'' (stylized in all capital letters) is an investigative documentary program distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts. The series has covered a variety of domestic and international issues, including terrorism, elections, environmental disasters, and other sociopolitical issues. Since its debut in 1983, ''Frontline'' has aired in the U.S. for 42 seasons, and has won critical acclaim and awards in broadcast journalism. In 2024, ''Frontline'' won its first Oscar at the 96th Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature, '' 20 Days in Mariupol'', made by a team of AP Ukrainian journalists. ''Frontline'' has produced over 800 documentaries from both in-house and independent filmmakers, 200 of which are available online. Format The program debuted in 1983, with NBC anchorwoman Jessica Savitch as the show's first host, but Savitch died later after the first-season finale. ''PBS NewsH ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet Union, it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country by area, extending across Time in Russia, eleven time zones and sharing Geography of the Soviet Union#Borders and neighbors, borders with twelve countries, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, economy were Soviet-type economic planning, highly centralized. As a one-party state go ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Finnish Customs
Finnish Customs (, ) is the customs service of the Republic of Finland. It is a government agency steered by the Ministry of Finance. The Finnish Customs is a part of the customs system of the European Union and has around 1,900 employees. History On February 12, 1812, the founding of The General Customs Directorate of the Grand Duchy of Finland was approved by Alexander I of Russia as the Grand Duke of Finland. By the 1850s, customs duties' share of total tax revenue was over 40 percent. The directorate was renamed the Board of Customs in 1881. The customs service of the Grand Duchy of Finland was autonomous from the customs service of the Russian Empire, and thus the transition to the customs service of an independent Finland in 1917 was smooth. Customs duties formed the backbone of the Finnish state economy until the 1930s, but the fiscal importance of duties has decreased drastically due to the international reduction or elimination of trade barriers since the 1950s. Fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated population of over 449million as of 2024. The EU is often described as a ''sui generis'' political entity combining characteristics of both a federation and a confederation. Containing 5.5% of the world population in 2023, EU member states generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around €17.935 trillion in 2024, accounting for approximately one sixth of global economic output. Its cornerstone, the European Union Customs Union, Customs Union, paved the way to establishing European Single Market, an internal single market based on standardised European Union law, legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where the states ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Finnish Border Guard
The Finnish Border Guard (FBG, ; ) is the agency responsible for enforcing the security of Finland's borders. Duties Main duties of the Finnish Border Guard: * Protecting the land borders and territorial waters of Finland from unauthorised encroachment. * Passport control at border crossing points, airports and ports. * First line of defence against territorial invasions. * Rescue operations (mainly at sea and in the remote areas of Lapland (Finland), Lapland). * Provide aid to other authorities such as the fire department in case of unusual events like wild fires. * Investigation of crimes pertaining to border security. * Aiding police forces in civil duties such as crowd control and riot control. * Military operations pertaining to internal security. * Customs control in the minor border crossing points without customs authorities. * Training of conscripts for wartime duty. These include (border jaegers) and (special border jaegers). * (During wartime) Sissi (Finnish light ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the Saint Petersburg metropolitan area, metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the List of European cities by population within city limits, fourth-most populous city in Europe, the List of cities and towns around the Baltic Sea, most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's List of northernmost items#Cities and settlements, northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As the former capital of the Russian Empire, and a Ports of the Baltic Sea, historically strategic port, it is governed as a Federal cities of Russia, federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Helsinki
Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipality, with million in the Helsinki capital region, capital region and million in the Helsinki metropolitan area, metropolitan area. As the most populous List of urban areas in Finland by population, urban area in Finland, it is the country's most significant centre for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is north of Tallinn, Estonia, east of Stockholm, Sweden, and west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. Helsinki has significant History of Helsinki, historical connections with these three cities. Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen—and surrounding commuter towns, including the neighbouring municipality of Sipoo to the east—Helsinki forms a Helsinki metropolitan area, metropolitan are ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |