More than a million Russians visit Finland annually; tours to this country are deservedly popular. The guests of the country are waiting for high-quality and inexpensive rest, wonderful shopping and majestic Scandinavian landscapes. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to visit the homeland of Santa Claus, some Russians are denied a visa by the Finnish consulates.
In 2011, Russians filed more than 1.2 million visa applications with the Finnish consular services. The overwhelming majority of them were satisfied, but about 8 thousand citizens of the Russian Federation were denied a Finnish visa.
Eight thousand refusals make up less than 0.7% of the total number of applications filed, so there is no reason to talk about any prejudiced attitude of the Finns towards Russians. It is worth noting that Russia issued about 160 thousand visas to Finnish citizens in 2011, while the number of refusals was 0.5%. You can see that the percentage of refusals for Finns and Russians is quite comparable.
According to Finnish consular officers, the main reason for refusal to process visa applications is errors in filling out documents. But sometimes the reasons for refusal may be different - for example, a visa may be refused if there is a reasonable suspicion that a person receives a Finnish visa only to get into the Schengen area. Having passed through Finland in transit, it goes to another EU country. Which, in turn, is a violation of the order of the Consular Convention - a visa should be obtained at the consulate of the country in which it is planned to spend most of the time.
Another reason for refusal may be the criminal history of the visa applicant. To verify the identity of a person, databases of the police and the Finnish border guard service are used, as well as similar databases collected in other countries of the European Union. If a tourist from Russia has violated the rules of staying in one of the European countries at least once, his chances of obtaining a visa for the second time are significantly reduced, since information about him and his offense will be available to all visa services of the Schengen countries.
It should be borne in mind that the number of Russians visiting Finland and other Schengen countries is constantly growing. This means that in real terms, we should expect an increase in the number of refusals to issue a Finnish visa. But in percentage terms, their number will still be less than one percent. For comparison: the share of refusals to issue entry visas to the United States in 2011 was 23%.
