“The situation is not a total catastrophe,” he says. Each time, only a handful of customers were wandering the aisles of the 3,000-square-metre (32,000-square-foot) store, which stocks daily goods and groceries in addition to fresh fish.Ī glaringly empty parking lot is not a welcome sight for any merchant, but if Disas owner and CEO Martti Tepponen is discouraged, he’s doing his best not to admit it. ThisisFINLAND visited Disas in Mustola several times during the spring and early summer. Looking for blue skies: One Disas store is located in the eastern Finnish countryside outside Lappeenranta. It goes to show how vulnerable a society can be.” Weathering the situation “The whole Southern Karelia area relies greatly on Russian tourists, although these stores serve both Finns and Russians. “It feels deserted recently – a huge parking lot and just three or four cars,” says Tuija. Since the border closure, things have been different. “The fish counter is shaped like a large letter S, and there could 20 or 30 people lined up, with a bunch of people serving them.” The operation went smoothly it took just a couple minutes to fill each order. She says that on a good day, there might be multiple buses parked outside, all bringing in cross-border shoppers. She is a Finn and a longtime Lappeenranta resident, recently retired from a career in social work and education. “When the border was open, the parking lot was full of Russian cars,” says Tuija, a regular customer. The store brags of having the longest fish counter of any market in Finland, and on many days business was so brisk that quite a queue would form as employees fileted and wrapped orders. The Disas branch in Mustola, outside Lappeenranta, has seemed very empty since then. It is unknown when the border will reopen.) This means nearly everything except essential healthcare workers, goods transport, returning citizens, diplomats and a small number of other exceptions. (At the time of writing, in late June 2020, the border remains sealed to nonessential travel. Photo: ThisisFINLAND.fiĪt Disas, a fish market with four outlets, Russians made up 70 percent of the customers prior to March 19, 2020, when authorities closed the border. Although business hasn’t dried up, it has decreased to the degree that part of the long, curved fish counter at the Disas store in Mustola is not in use.
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