In St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, many have Finnish Schengen visas. It is simple, fast and allows you to walk around Europe. But in order to get a Finnish visa again, most trips must be made to Finland. And ideally spend on its territory most of the time in the Schengen area (meaning to enter and leave through the Finnish border).

A few years ago, one of my former colleagues had a Finnish visa coming to an end and he pointed out that there were more trips to other countries. He decided to "drop the visa" and was going to visit Finland again. There was nothing to do there, so he decided to go there and back one day. Usually travelling through the border and having passed all customs procedures, he left a couple of kilometers and stopped. Should I go somewhere? I visited the country, there is a mark on the passport, what else do I need? He smoked, walked around the car, turned around and came back to the customs.

A Finnish border guard took the documents, stung his finger into the computer and somehow unhealthy revived.

What did you do in Finland?

I went to the store.

You spent 20 minutes in the country. You would not have time to go to the store, make shopping and come back. What purpose did you visit Finland?

The car was dragged into the box, forced to unload all the things. They smelled a dog. Then they began to break the car. Everything that could be quickly removed was removed. The doors were dismantled, the filters were opened, the reserve was removed, which the customs officer seemed to be going to dismantle, but changed his mind. We looked everywhere with lights and cameras. Then they gathered everything together, wished good luck and let go. In the end, I spent all three hours.

The acquaintance was very afraid that then no visa would be given at all, but submitted documents and received Schengen without problems. Now, while visiting Finland, he tries to get to the store and thinkfully shop in it.