It is a quiet night and I wanted to write something. It just came to my mind.
Before the end of the Cold War the Soviet Union was one of the key trade partners of Finland. In the university it was possible to take a course how to conduct this trade with the USSR and other Eastern Bloc countries. I took this course in 1989. But then it all ended when the Soviet Union collapsed and many republics became independent. The 1990s was the wild east in Russia and in many ways the situation was chaotic until 1999 when Putin came to power. Then the economy started becoming more stable and new business opportunities opened also to many Finnish corporations. I was in America in 1999. Russia’s economy grew and people were happier than during Yeltsin’s regime. Many international companies invested in projects, facilities and operations in Russia. Who could have predicted that all this development would end in 2022? We did not see the war coming. One result of this international conflict is the end of business activities between Finnish companies and Russia - trade fell effectively to zero, which is not any major deal according to some people who have been in the news. So in 30 years all Soviet trade was minimized and for those who took the Soviet trade courses (SEV-trade) their eastern trade expertise is obsolete. So this is how the world has changed.