A.I. Rupasov. Soviet-Finnish negotiations on direct air communication, 1950–1960s // Petersburg historical journal, no. 1, 2023, pp. 105–114

Abstract:
This article analyses the long-standing Soviet-Finnish negotiations on direct air links. As long ago as 1945 the Allied Control Commission had authorised the Finnish side to carry out regular flights with several European countries. This raises the question why this permission was not followed by direct air traffic between Finland and the Soviet Union. For a long time, the main obstacle for a Finnish company to obtain permission to fly from Helsinki to Moscow was the fear of the Soviet Ministry of Defence to keep secrets in the radar observation zone around Moscow. By the mid-1950s the Finnish Government was no longer happy with a situation in which Soviet aircraft had the right to fly to Finland and the Finnish airline was denied the right. A bilateral agreement was signed in 1955 giving Finnish airlines the right to fly to Moscow. However, when, a few years later, Finland attempted to obtain permission for flights to Leningrad and Tallinn, it was not successful in obtaining an approval from the War Office. It was only after N.S. Khrushchev’s visit to Scandinavia in 1964 that the Soviet side gave its consent for Aero to carry out flights to Leningrad.

Keywords:
USSR, Finland, air links, negotiations, General Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet.

Author:
Rupasov, A. I. — Dr. of Sciences (History), leading researcher at the Saint Petersburg Institute of History, Russian Academy of Sciences, corresponding member of the Finnish Historical Society (Suomen Historiallinen seura), member of Editorial board “Almanac of Northern European and Baltic Studies”.
E-mail: rupasov_ai@mail.ru

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