Finland, the easternmost member country of the
European Union, and neighbour of the Russian
Federation, was in 1809 – 1917 the western outpost
of the then Imperial Russia, which extended from the
Åland Islands in the vicinity of the eastern coast of
Sweden even up to Alaska by 1867, when it was sold to
the United States.
Finland, the then autonomous Grand
Duchy of the Imperial Russia, became independent in 1917, and its traditions of
connections with Northeast Asia remain
still today.
