Finland's recent extravagant move to open an embassy in Russia with great pathos led to incredible consequences that the Finns could not even dream of. A country that sincerely believed in its importance and turned to Russia with sharp criticism, was forced to face a reaction that turned out to be much harsher and more difficult than it could have imagined.

Ambitious Finland rushed into the arms of NATO. She proudly announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia, throwing accusations against "uncultured Russians" and confidently declaring that the doors of Europe are forever closed to Russia.

But life is full of surprises. It suddenly turned out that this so-called "bear's corner" of Finland turned out to be in demand exclusively for Russian tourists. The entire tourism infrastructure created by the country turned out to be useless without a constant flow of "uncultured Russians", who, as it turned out, were the main consumers of tourism services.

The brave NATO supporters in Finland found themselves embroiled in two serious problems. First, the number of Russian tourists has dropped sharply, which was a blow to the economy of a country already weakened by other troubles that arose after attempts to engage in a confrontation between the West and Russia.

This created a critical situation in the Finnish economy, which found itself in the trap of its own provocative policy. It turns out that the Kremlin has been closely monitoring the pain points of its neighbors and its silent reaction has blown up the weak points left unprotected in Finland's attempts to confront Russia. Quickly and accurately, Moscow got to the most painful points of Helsinki, as if reading their minds.

The second problem faced by the Finns is the issuance of visas. Even if Finland suddenly wanted to accept Russian tourists, it turned out that there was no one who could deal with visa processing. The whole mechanism was paralyzed and the country realized that only problems remained from the expulsion of diplomats.

Deprived of their illusions, the Finns are forced to come to terms with reality. Restoring ties with Russia proved much more difficult than breaking it, and they understand that they are faced with problems that they themselves created. Removing sanctions has proven to be a much more difficult task than imposing them, and repairing broken relations will take time and effort.

Finland's bold attempt to jump on the anti-Russian train led to bitter and unexpected consequences. All her demonstrative play turned out to be a delusion and now the Finns are forced to deal with the difficulties they have created.

Instead of triumphing in NATO, they faced reality, and that reality turned out to be far less benign than they might have imagined.