Is Finland Fake?

**Discussion of Finland coffee facts begins at 6:27**

**Discussion of conspiracy theory begins at 10:00**

What if I told you one of the world’s happiest, most peaceful countries… doesn’t actually exist?  I’m talking about the happiest country on earth, Finland.  Land of saunas, coffee, Nokia phones, and endless lakes and forests.   But what if this so-called nation was nothing more than a convenient illusion created to fuel Japan’s love of Sushi and avoid any regulatory oversight?  Today, we’re diving into one of the internet’s strangest conspiracy theories, the claim that Finland… isn’t real.  The land mass we see on maps?  Not even real, that’s just open Baltic ocean. And the people who claim to be Finnish?  They’re just residents of eastern Sweden or Norther Estonia led to believe they reside in Finland.  We’ll trace how this theory started, who supposedly benefits from it, and why thousands of people online actually believe it.  Join us on another deep dive as we try to find out if Finland really exists.

Transcript

Hey, guys.
Hey, guys. It's just 2SchemeQueens today.
Just the two of us.
Yeah, Colleen went off into the wilderness. She went looking for Yeti.
Kait, we had an episode.
I was on part of the episode.
We had guests who have had actual sightings.
Of Bigfoot.
Yeah.
But is Bigfoot and Yeti the same thing?
I don't know. Thanks for sticking with us last week. Kait, do you want to tell them what happened with our virtual recording?
I was very excited.
Megan got me a mic and I set it all up. And they were like, it just doesn't sound right, Kait. And I was like, I promise you, the microphone is plugged into my computer.
I don't know what else to do. And they were like, okay, you sound really far away. And I was like, no, I think it's just whatever.
So we record the whole episode, get off the phone, and then I start to clean up. And I'm like, oh, well, the microphone was plugged into my computer, but not the microphone.
So you did enjoy me and my internal built-in microphone onto my, from my computer.
I mean, it wasn't as good, but it wasn't as bad as I would have thought.
So it's been worse. It could have been worse.
Our listeners who are sticking with us at this point have definitely had far worse audio on this podcast. Again, like maybe the Bigfoot episode we had. I have this dang eco setting.
I keep turning off on my thermostat.
Yeah.
So it senses that when I'm not here, yeah, and it turns the heat off. And even like if I'm sleeping upstairs and it's so annoying. So I came home from work, it was like 55 degrees in here.
Oh my gosh.
I was freezing.
So I plugged in the heated blanket that Kait gave me for Christmas, made myself a hot cup of coffee, put on all the layers, got the fireplace going, waiting for the temperature to be up to a nice 70 degrees, which is how I like it.
Poor Tanner was probably so cold.
That's all I could think too. Every time when I'm working, I try to remember to log on and change it. But I always think about that poor Tanner, because Tanner is not comfortable if it's less than 80 degrees.
Yeah, Tanner is definitely a warm dog.
He could not survive in the snow for too long.
No.
3:19
Drink Check
So is it time for our drink check?
Yeah, drink check.
I'm ready at the.
This is my favorite drink check of all time.
Speaking of hot drinks, today we're having some coffee.
Love coffee, it's my favorite.
How'd you make your coffee today?
Well, this is a nice brew, if you will. And I just put a little splash of nut pods in it, original. And if nobody knows what nut pod is, it's just, it's a creamer that tastes just like cream.
Well, I just said that to tricker you, because you say everything that I say is no. I'm always like, it's not dairy, but you can't tell the difference. And Megan's like, everyone can tell the difference.
Kait is convinced that you can put coconut milk in place of milk or cream in anything, and it tastes the same.
And I'm like, mm-hmm. I had a cup of coffee, even though for Christmas last year, I got the really fancy frother on my espresso machine. But you know what works better than the espresso machine frother is the Nespresso frother.
Yes, the one that you push the button, and it goes, shh, shh.
It's the best.
It's the best. So even though I have the fancy, fancy setup, I like to just use that one. So I like to put a little, this is the end.
It's gonna probably be like the last one for me until the end of 2026. But I like to put just a little bit of eggnog in the frother.
Oh.
It froths up real nice, cause it's nice and fatty. And then pour that on top of my coffee, and you're like, it's my very own like eggnog latte.
Oh my gosh. That's fancy.
That's what I did.
I didn't know you liked eggnog.
Like, I mean, we definitely grew up, and it was like a special treat at Christmas. But I wouldn't say I'm like a regular eggnog drinker, but like I bought it this year purely for coffee.
My dad always hopes that someone's going to drink eggnog with him at Christmas. And the other day we were at work, and Megan's like, stop making that face.
And I was like, I just can't picture you like going to a dinner party and maybe not enjoying something. And just being polite, you know, and taking some bites and pushing around your plate. It would just be all over your face.
I went to Cotillion, so I do know how to be proper.
You went to Cotillion?
I did, uh-huh.
Wow, I'm impressed.
I would not have guessed.
No. Everybody was doing it, and I was like, sure, what is it? I didn't know what it was.
Wasn't it just a lot of like, there were boys, right?
Yeah.
You just like danced with boys?
Yeah, you learn how to dance, you learn how to foxtrot and waltz, and then you learn how to set a table properly.
And then there was like this dance at the end of the year that everybody got dressed up for. I was like not a debutante, but I did do cotillion.
I'm impressed. You know, Carrie's probably really impressed right now too.
Well, I'm surprised you didn't do it, Megan.
6:19
Finlandʼs Background
The reason we're having coffee today is because we're going to talk about Finland.
And did you know, Kate, that Finland drinks more coffee per person than any other country in the world? Wow. Finland might not even be real.
That's what we're talking about today.
Oh my gosh.
But if you believe Finland is real, then Finns consume an average of four cups of coffee per day. So the average person consumes roughly 26 pounds of coffee per year.
Wow. I do have a question about that. When you say four cups of coffee a day, is that like measurement cups?
Is that like eight ounce cups of coffee? Or is that like mugs of coffee? Because I feel like Americans drink a lot of ounces of coffee.
That's a good question, isn't it?
Lauren's a good question.
Yeah. I mean, Bourbon Boy probably has more than that in a day, right?
For sure. He'll make a whole pot and it'll be gone.
Coffee breaks are such a national tradition that it's built into their contracts. Workplaces have formal coffee breaks.
Oh, my gosh.
Wouldn't that be nice? I wish I could speak Finnish. Kava-tako, I think is what it's called.
I don't know.
Coffee break?
Yeah.
They drink a lot of light roast though, as opposed to most of us like our, well, I mean, I like a light roast, but most people like a dark roast, right?
I like a light roast.
I think dark roast is a little too much. Light roast has more caffeine in it. Did you know that?
I did not.
The barista over here with all the facts, and I think they do a lot of drinking coffee at night. Apparently, when you go to people's houses, they offer you coffee, and if you turn it down, that's considered rude.
Do they drink decaf or all caffeinated? Is it all caffeinated?
I bet I was like, are they just less princessy than Americans who are like, I mean, I don't have this problem, but like, you know, you, other people who are like, if I have coffee, I'm not going to be able to sleep.
Like, maybe they're not like that, maybe they're just tough and they aren't high maintenance, like Americans.
Or it's just like dark all the time over there, dark and cold, because it's like all the way up close to the North Pole.
Yeah, it's sort of up there in like the Scandinavian area.
Yeah, but that's like an arctic circle.
Yeah, no, you're right. Maybe that's the thing. The Bourbon boy drinks coffee at night, does he drink caffeine?
They do.
And he still sleeps fine?
Yeah.
I just think people don't understand what it's like to have a brain that doesn't shut off, Megan. So I have to limit my caffeine consumption after a certain hour.
Again, a lot of people do.
That's why she calls me a princess.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's why Americans in general are like such... Yeah, I can't, we're not even going to get into sleep habits.
Final interesting fact for you about coffee in Finland, and it used to be illegal in Finland. They had like their own prohibition for coffee.
In the 1700s and 1800s, yeah, it was banned multiple times because it was so expensive and it was seen as a luxury that encouraged laziness. So people would just secretly drink it, which is so weird, right?
Because we think of it as like a productivity thing.
Right. It's like you're up, you're getting your coffee, you're doing things. For your day, yeah.
I wonder, does a lot of their coffee get imported? Because I would think it doesn't, I mean, all of the coffee comes from South America.
Yeah, it comes from Latin America and Africa.
Wow. You're right. So it does have to be imported.
I wonder if that played a part in it too.
So are we ready to get into it?
Let's get into it. Finish coffee.
Or no, we're not done with the coffee talk.
Okay.
But I'm glad that was your favorite drink check ever. More so than all those cocktails that I've like slaved over and hand-squeezed juice for.
I'm a simple person, Megan.
So low maintenance this girl over here.
Yeah.
10:13
Finland Not Real
So, Kait, what if I told you one of the world's happiest, most peaceful countries doesn't actually exist?
I don't believe you.
And obviously, I'm talking about Finland.
I've seen pictures on Pinterest.
Finland is allegedly the happiest country on earth.
It is the land of saunas, coffee, Nokia phones, and endless lakes and forests, or so we've been told.
But what if this so-called nation was nothing more than a convenient illusion, created to fuel Japan's love of sushi and to avoid any regulatory oversight?
Today, we're diving into one of the internet's strangest conspiracy theories, the claim that Finland isn't real. The landmass we see on maps, not even real. That's just open Baltic Ocean.
And the people who claim to be Finnish, they're just residents of Eastern Sweden or Northern Estonia, led to believe they reside in Finland.
We'll trace how this theory started, who supposedly benefits from it, and why thousands of people online actually believe it. So get comfortable, here we go.
I'm going to apologize in advance that, I mean, this is a little more historical than we usually do. History is not a strong suit for this duo.
This trio really, except that we were over for New Year's Day, we were at Mermaid Girl's House, and her husband, he's a real bird man, he's a real history buff, had this history game.
It was like chronology, you gotta guess the years and put them in place. And Colleen was trying to tell us how good she'd be at that game. And we just all looked at her and we said, you think history?
You think you're good at history? She's like, well, I know a lot of facts about history. Okay, so I'm going to give you a little history of Finland and then I'm going to get into where this conspiracy theory started, okay?
Okay.
Take out the conspiracy theory.
If we just open the history book, here's what we'd learn. So Finland is located in Northern Europe. It is one of the Nordic countries together with Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.
I thought Scandinavia is, is it not?
Finland is considered a Nordic country, not strictly Scandinavian.
Though it has strong cultural ties and history with Scandinavia, which is Denmark, Norway and Sweden, it is geographically linked via the Scandinavian Peninsula's northern part.
The key distinction is language as Finnish isn't Germanic like Scandinavian languages.
Oh, very interesting.
But we're going to get so much deeper here.
Looks like a penis. Norway kind of looks like a penis.
I have been to Norway. Norway is real, but you know what they're saying. People have been to Finland.
It's just have they actually been to Finland. So Finland mostly borders Russia on the east. Are you looking at a map right now?
I was, yeah.
So you see it mostly borders Russia on the east.
It shares a partial border on the west with Sweden, but it is otherwise mostly water bound.
Yeah. So here's the thing. I didn't know Finland was so close to Ukraine or Russia.
In my head, it was in a different place.
It used to be a Russian, it used to be like part of the Russian.
Like the Soviet?
Soviet Union is 1922 to 1991. I looked at those dates. So this is pre-Soviet Union.
It used to be part of the Russian Empire.
Oh my gosh.
So the current population is 5.6 million people, which is about the population of the state of South Carolina. It is, so this whole country is smaller than nearly half of the United States, like half of all of the states in the United States.
About 1.4 million people live in the capital city of Helsinki. It is a large, sparsely populated country, primarily made up of forest. So 70 percent of the surface area of the country is forest.
And there are 187,888 lakes. It's a lot of lakes in a small area. What else is interesting about Finland is that it has been named the happiest country in the world for eight consecutive years.
And so this ranking is based on social support like education, health care and unemployment, quality of life, which includes work-life balance, natural beauty and clean air, and low crime rates, to name a few.
Other fun facts for you, there are about the same number of saunas as cars. And I told you that Finns drink more coffee per capita than any other nation, consuming around 1,460 cups per person annually.
And the law mandates 2 10-minute coffee breaks during a standard 8-hour work day.
So you're telling me there's about the population of South Carolina that lives in Finland and that population drinks more coffee than anyone else in the world?
Per capita, yeah.
Okay, okay. So it's a density-based statistic.
But also, I don't even know the last time I got to have lunch uninterrupted. I mean, right? Like, we just work, and we're eating while we're working.
Yeah.
And you're telling me we could have a law mandating coffee breaks?
Honestly, it would be the best.
I would work there just for that.
You'd move to Finland so you could get your two 10-minute coffee breaks every eight hours?
I would move to Finland just because I'm a big idea girl.
It'll never actually happen. So Finland was part of Sweden from 1150 to 1809. After Sweden lost the Finnish war in 1809, Finland became an autonomous grand duchy under the Russian Tsar.
So it had its own government and currency, but Russia controlled foreign policy and defense. And so for most of the 19th century, Finland is sort of autonomous, but technically under Russia, part of the whole kind of-
Under Russian regime.
Yeah.
Okay.
Until the Russo-Japanese War. Kait, have you heard of any of these things?
No, I had- Listen, I don't even think I understood. I don't think that I even think about other countries having wars.
Yeah.
Well, because we're-
I mean, I know that like Ukraine and Russia are like in a war right now.
Well, and like as I'm like telling you about some of these little wars and stuff, it's all like, and then there was the war and it lasted two weeks. I'm like, that's not how we think of-
I mean, it's still sad, like all these people die, but you're like, yeah, who thinks about it like that?
Sounds like a long battle, in my opinion.
Yeah, we are so American and self-involved. So 1904, 1905, Japan was engaged in the Russia-Japanese War against Imperial Russia. The deal was that both Russia and Japan were trying to expand powers in East Asia.
Russia sought influence over Manchuria, which would give them access to warm water ports. Japan wanted dominance in Korea and parts of China.
Up until this point, Russia was like this huge powerhouse, like no one could defeat Russia, they were just taking over the world. And Japan somehow won this war. And so like the whole world is shocked.
It's like the first time that like an Asian power has taken down a European one. So this ends with the Treaty of Portsmouth, the war is over, relations remain strained, but you know, war is over.
But the czars rep took a huge hit here, because everyone was like, you have drained everyone's like money, resources, everyone's demoralized, but also no one has confidence now in their czar.
So it's like, we had this whole useless war that you couldn't win, and you've just drained it, and we're all done, we're actually done with you, and maybe you're not as powerful as we always thought, right?
And that is when Anastasia went missing, right?
I'm sure.
Yeah. Did you know, this is another random history fact, did you know that some historians believe that, like, the bomb, the nuclear bomb in Japan didn't actually end the war?
Like America, that's not why they ended the war, that they were more worried about Russia invading Japan than actually America ending the war.
So, like, we've been taught as Americans that, like, we bombed Japan, and Japan was like, back down, I'm done with this because of the bomb. But really, some people theorize that it's that they just didn't want Russia to come in and take them.
Thank you for that fun fact, Kait. So, again, everyone's like, Russia, you're really not that big a deal. So, they're trying to reflex, they're trying to get some respect back.
Yeah.
So, they started really tightening control on like all these countries, right?
And they were trying to like, Russify Finland. So, they started restricting Finnish language and governance. And so, Finland at this point had been able to be like relatively independent.
Now, Russia is really trying to take control. Yeah. At the same time, however, there was unrest.
There are uprisings and strikes and mutinies kind of throughout the empire. And people were protesting harsh working conditions and low wages and the autocratic rule of Tsar Nicholas II.
And this all came to a head on Bloody Sunday in January 1905, when peaceful protesters in St. Petersburg were shot by troops. Oh my gosh.
So at the end of the year, workers across the empire, including Finland, participated in the general strike of 1905. So all the workers walked off their jobs. So factories, railroads, post offices, newspapers, they all had to shut down.
And then sort of like the students and the universities, all kind of followed. And so all the major cities were kind of paralyzed. And it only lasted a week before Tsar Nicholas II was forced to compromise and end the strike.
And so one of the, like some of the concessions he made is that he kind of eased up these Russification policies and he allowed Finland to adopt a new parliament with universal suffrage.
So another fun fact, Finland was the first country in the world where women had the right to vote.
Wow.
Yes. So this created political unity and democracy in Finland. So Finland was still technically under Russia, but they're kind of starting to take steps towards independence.
Do people in Finland actually speak Finnish?
Yes, they did speak Finnish, except when Russia tried to say, no more speaking Finnish, now you're all going to speak Russian.
And they were like, now we're striking. So then after the strike, they were like, okay, I guess you can speak Finnish.
Okay. And then what kind of alphabet does? Hold on, I'm Googling this.
Finnish uses the Latin alphabet, which is the Roman script, and they add vowels.
Because I think America uses the Latin alphabet, because Russia doesn't use, Russia and like those Eastern Europeans, some Eastern European countries don't use the same alphabet as us.
I was thinking about your Latin experience and how like when I went to Italy, I couldn't speak Italian and the guys didn't speak English, but you could speak Spanish and you could.
Yeah.
I was back when my Spanish was a little bit better.
Remember when you set a goal in like 2024?
To speak more Spanish. Yeah. I feel like I'm usually pretty good at my follow-through.
You are.
That was a big idea.
Yeah.
Not a lot of follow-through.
Yeah.
So during World War I, Russia was collapsing.
So again, it's now been like a decade of Finland having the opportunity to kind of like build their own parliament and build up as a country. And they're like, here's our chance. We are going to declare independence from Russia.
So they adopted a formal declaration of independence on December 6th, 1917. The new Bolshevik government led by Vladimir Lenin officially recognized Finnish independence on January 4th, 1918. Oh, wow.
Just weeks after Finland declared independence from Russia, the country collapsed into a civil war. So on one side were the Reds. So these were mostly like workers and socialists, and they wanted a socialist Finland.
They were kind of inspired by the Russian Revolution, and they didn't have a lot of money, a lot of property.
On the other hand, were the Whites, and they were like the middle to upper class, kind of more conservative, a lot of farmers and landowners. They wanted an independent, non-socialist republic.
So again, this civil war lasted only a few months, but it was brutal. More than 36,000 people died. But a lot of those deaths were actually like after the war was over, and they were just executing people in prison camps.
So it was like pretty horrific time in Finnish history. But as a result, Finland established themselves as an independent, anti-communist republic in May 1918, and they elected their first president in 1919.
You said they declared their independence in December of 1918?
Their declaration of independence was December 6th, 1917. 1970, this is the period of the World War.
Number one.
That's what I'm saying, because they said Russia is, this is like our week, they're taking advantage. They're like, Russia is weak right now, here's our chance. And so they just, we are independent.
And then within a month, Vladimir Lenin says, okay, you guys are independent.
Cause they just can't handle it.
But then they had about a year of like, you know, fighting amongst themselves before they figured out how they were going to rule themselves, right?
So what is their government? Is it like a democratic socialist government?
Finland is now a social democracy. So it blends capitalism and strong socialist elements. So when they had this war, they were like, no socialism, we're not doing that.
But I think over time, this was such a traumatic, even though it was very brief, there was like a lot of death in this small country with not a lot of people.
And that they kind of use that to be like, we can never get to a place again where we have like such disparity that we're fighting. So it sounds like they have sort of a blended situation.
So there are some aspects of socialism, but also it is a capitalist country and it is a democracy. Now we're going to get into the conspiracy.
I just wanted to give you, because I, as a self-involved American, didn't even know that Finland and Russia had any association. Yeah, me neither.
I didn't even know they were next to each other.
That's why I'm giving you this background, because as we get into the conspiracy, it's really all about Russia and Japan. Okay? So the conspiracy is, again, that Finland doesn't even exist.
It is not a real country.
23:56
Theory Specifics
So this kind of came to light. It's been around. It's kind of an older conspiracy for over a decade now.
But first came to light on Reddit.
Okay.
And the conspiracy claims that Finland was first created during the Cold War between Russia and the West. It was also around this time that environmentalism and the idea of preserving our planet was really taking off.
And it is due to both of those things that two of the main players in the Finland conspiracy came to work closely with each other, Russia and Japan. The theory alleges that the entire history, that whole history I just gave you, not real.
That was all rewritten. And that the area of land that we know as Finland is actually just Eastern Sweden or Northern Estonia. The maps have been altered.
So the maps that we know, all fake. This is all just a massive cover up. So after World War II, Russia, then known as the USSR, and Japan secretly allied themselves over fish.
Allegedly, they agreed that Japan would have exclusive fishing rights off the west coast of the USSR, but the USSR would be entitled to a percentage of the fish caught in that region.
The Trans-Siberian Railroad was actually created solely for the purpose of transporting fish across the USSR to Japan.
They would drop off a small percentage of food and then import into Japan under the disguise of Nokia products, because Nokia is the biggest company in Finland. Okay? Yeah.
Japan is the number one importer of Nokia products, but no one in Japan actually owns a Nokia phone. So why are they importing so much Nokia? This is the theory, because they're not importing Nokia.
It's all a cover to get the fish to Japan. What? Yes.
I love this.
Finland's primary exports are wood and paper.
But again, they have this one big company, Nokia. Now, the maps we have studied don't show that Russia had a West Coast, because they had created a fake country, and you know why they called it Finland?
Why?
Fin or fish. This fake country was all to protect their secret agreement.
So according to the Redditors, Japan can fish in the region of the ocean between Sweden and Russia, and they don't have to worry about any kind of environmental repercussions, because no one is expecting any fishing to happen, doesn't have to be
regulated, because as far as everyone else knows, that's just land, it's just a big landmass. Again, and in return, Russia is going to get a percentage of this fish that it can then distribute amongst their populace.
The Redditors believe that it started, it was this top secret, it was just between Russia and Japan, and eventually the UN did catch on to the lie, but they protected the secret so that they could have this model, this fake example of like the
perfect nation. But it's not even a real nation, it doesn't even exist.
This is a hard one to follow. It's just land and nobody owns it.
They're claiming that that land that is Finland, that's ocean.
Oh.
It is all ocean owned by Russia.
And so no one is like, oh, we got to, I'm going to talk about the fish regulations of seafood, but like, no one is like, oh, we got to regulate how much fish you can catch in this area, because as far as the rest of the world knows, that's land.
It's just forest there.
Oh, but people live there.
No, people live in Sweden and Estonia, and think they live in Finland, but they don't. Finland is not real.
I don't know if I believe this. This is way too hard to understand.
Well, I know, because we're not history people. And I do have some answers to some of your questions as we go forward. And that's how it started.
It started as this Reddit post, and it just kind of took a life of its own.
So over a decade ago, there was an Ask Reddit post by violently average that said, what did your parents show you that you assumed was completely normal, only to later discover that it was not normal at all?
And so then rare again, a user replied, my parents never believed in Finland. I grew up to never believe in Finland until I researched further. It's a pretty heated topic in my family.
Before he went on to present kind of those facts that I presented in his theory. There's actually an entire subreddit now just dedicated to this conspiracy theory that is run by user PMEniceMessages.
And they summarize the theory saying that Japan and Soviet relations had always been shaky at best, but also incredibly secretive.
Even as early as 1925, Japan and the Soviet Union had secret deals with each other regarding fishing rights between the two countries with the Soviet Union giving up much of its fishing rights to Japan and seemingly no explanation as to why.
So again, I don't know anything about history. I have to do my own research here, my own deep dive. And historically, USSR and Japan did clash over fishing policy.
So this all started back in the 1800s when Russian and Japanese fishermen would fight over resources. Japan had very little arable land, so seafood is their primary source of protein, but they kind of got in trouble.
There's all these strict regulations around fishing due to concerns for the environment, but also a critical food shortage. Because during World War II, there are food shortages. All they have is they're fishing, that's it.
But if someone goes out and catches all the fish, then the whole country is going to starve, right? Right. So it was heavily regulated.
So there's also an area of ocean that they still kind of contest about who belongs to the USSR or Japan. But the USSR would constantly catch these Japanese fishing boats, fishing in USSR waters, because that was very rich with fish.
They didn't have to deal with getting in trouble with Japan for overfishing. Pretty much Japan had to agree to the Soviet jurisdiction over 200 miles of these waters in order to maintain fishing rights.
But the USSR also got reciprocal fishing rights. So there were all these agreements.
They've had multiple agreements in the late 20th century that all fell apart a few years ago when Russia claimed that Japan refused to pay for fishing in Japan, said it was retaliation for sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, and anyway, all this
drama. But the point is that this whole, I mean, I'm like, wait, this whole theory is really about fishing rights. And that seemed to so absurd to me. But like, in fact, there is this whole fishing drama history between the USSR and Japan.
It also seems so crazy to me too.
I'm glad you had that same thought. I'm like, they're fighting over this?
Over fish?
Yeah.
Yeah. Also, don't we just sound privileged too that we're like, we don't know what it's like to be like, starving? Your country is going hungry because someone fished too much?
Yeah.
PME and ICE messages said, the secretive treaties and alliances continued right up until just before the fall of the Soviet Union when Gorbachev made trips to Japan months before the fall of the Soviet Union stating the entire time, how the relations
between them were improving even when Soviet relations with the rest of the world were worsening. In fact, the entire past 100 years of Japanese-Russian relations bring up many unanswered questions.
Why at the height of World War II were the battles between these two countries minimal despite being on opposing sides? Why did Japan sign a peace treaty with Russia in 1941, just months before their allies Germany went to war with Russia?
Good question, huh?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I'll tell you. Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact was signed in April 13th of 1941. It meant that these two nations fought against each other's allies, but not against each other because pretty much they were like, there's just too much war to fight.
We are fighting too many people. Even though we hate each other, we're going to temporally agree that we're just going to fight other people.
Hate each other from afar.
Exactly.
Yeah. Okay.
That worked until 1945, until at that point, the Soviets joined the Allied campaign against Japan.
Okay.
So they did this to avoid fighting multiple fronts and to focus their resources.
So again, as I mentioned, while they were enemies, the USSR just had like bigger priorities, specifically like the fight against German invasion, and Japan was really trying to focus on Southeast Asia.
Then at the end of the war, the USSR did break the neutrality pact because it claimed that Japan had been aiding the Axis powers against the USSR, but also Stalin wanted to seize territory in East Asia.
Then 1945, the USSR sent 1.2 million men to Manchuria, and then we get the surrender. So I think that goes back to your point that you're right, that like perhaps Japan was more concerned about...
Russia than America.
Yeah, I mean, there you go. Way to drop your one history fact and bring that all together.
I know, I just learned that in conversation the other day.
The Redditor also said, why were relations between Japan and Russia always good throughout the Cold War despite the major geopolitical differences between the countries and close geographical positions that you think could cause tensions?
The answer is simple, they shared a common secret, a common asset that worked in both of their favors, and that asset was Finland.
I can't imagine coming up with this in my head. Like if this is like...
You'd have to be so smart and have so much knowledge in order to put these pieces together and create this conspiracy theory. Just going back to like these relations, they really weren't... It's like, why were their relations so good?
Well, they weren't that good, which again, I think we've touched on the point you made about really Japan was scared of Russia because in August 1945, the USSR captured the four southernmost islands and deported the Japanese inhabitants.
Throughout the Cold War, the two countries continued to negotiate over these islands and again, that involves fishing rights and all of that. The USSR said, well, why don't you take two islands? We'll take two.
Japan said, no, it's all or not. I want all of them. Japan was allied with the United States.
The United States is also negotiating with Japan. If you want Okinawa back, then you can't compromise with the USSR to get about with these islands. So it was just everyone's involved, right?
So while they were on separate sides of the Cold War, Japan and the USSR did not engage in a lot of negotiations. And again, everything was sort of all related to their economic entanglements.
The Soviet Union needed Japan's capital technology and consumer goods. Japan needed Soviets' natural resources like oil, gas, coal and timber. And Japan was actually USSR's number one non-socialist trading partner.
Wow. Fun fact. Fun fact.
So that is most of my theory. I have some frequently asked questions about this. So this PME Nice, who runs his whole subreddit, listed some frequently asked questions.
Do you have any about this, Kait?
I don't know if I have a question, but I did think Nokia was a Japanese country or a Japanese company.
I'm so happy you met. Have you mentioned Nokia? Let me tell you what I want about Nokia.
Okay.
Nokia was founded in the 1800s as pulp mills before expanding into electricity generation in 1902.
So it earned its name from the town near one of its mills. Decades later, it merged with Finnish Rubber Works and Finnish Cable Works, which produced telephone, telegraph, and electrical cables.
In the 1960s, the company was manufacturing paper items, car and bicycle tires, rubber boots, communication cables, TVs, computers, generators, robotics, plastics, aluminum, chemicals, and military equipment, including gas masks.
In the 1970s, they created a radio telephone company in conjunction with the Scandinavian TV manufacturer, and then went on to launch the world's very first car phone. Guess how big it was?
I feel like my mom had one. It was in a bag. You're talking about the bag phone?
Probably like a suitcase, probably.
Yeah, yeah.
It was 22 pounds.
Oh my gosh.
Even my 1998 Mercedes has a car phone wired into the phone.
It's not even this big. This is like, that feels ancient. It's a big old phone.
I didn't know that your Mercedes had a car phone in it.
It doesn't work, but every time you started the car, it would try to connect to the phone and you would hear it like trying to connect.
But I did keep it because it's a conversation piece to just pick up and it's in the armrest and you pull it out. In 1987, Nokia developed one of the first mobile phones and actually took off. And so like Nokia was thriving, late 80s, early 90s.
It was like very cutting edge. But then this company, which had been so forward, thinking for the last two centuries, just couldn't keep up with like iPhones, smartphones and all that. So they ended up partnering with Microsoft to try to compete.
And the whole thing was a failure. So Nokia is still a very big company. It's a very big industry in Finland.
It does like a lot of telecommunications, but not known for cell phones like they were back in our day. Back when we used to play Snake. We have to wait until 9 p.m.
to send a text, so you wouldn't get charged.
Free text messages and calls on nights and weekends. Those really were the days.
But it is interesting that the Nokia logo looks like a fish. That's interesting. But again, I think it goes back to the fact that it started as like a kind of mill, right?
This whole theory I mentioned earlier that the Redditor posted that like the trans-Siberian railroad was completed in order to transport fish under the guise of transporting Nokia exports.
Yeah.
Actually doesn't make any sense because the railroad was completed in 1906 and Nokia was not massively exporting to Japan at that time and debunked on that one. But that was my fun Nokia fact.
Other questions that people might ask, like, what about the Finnish people? Aren't the Finnish people all in on this? But no, the point is that the people who think they're Finnish just aren't Finnish.
That's what the conspiracy theory alleges, that they're Swedish, they're Estonian.
The way if I were finished, this would absolutely piss you off. Yeah.
Well, if this is really the case, how was it survived? How's everyone just looked the other way and continued to feed into this conspiracy?
Again, it says, at first, it was a sign of goodwill between Western countries and the Soviet Union, a bargaining chip that could be played.
But Finland has since evolved into something much more, an idealistic placeholder for what countries should aspire to. No real country could consistently place first an education, health care, gender equality, literacy rates and national stability.
The least corrupt government in the world, and they rank highest in freedom of press. So the rumor is that everyone has just gone with this because it's like a nice aspiration.
Like, here's this perfect country and you all should aspire to be this good, even though there's absolutely no way that any country in the world could possibly be that good.
Hold on. This is the only thing that's making me believe it.
That it's too perfect. Like, it's all of the stats we do every day. Well, I also wonder too, like, it's got to be, it's the same with like Iceland.
I'm like, Iceland, how do you not have a military? And then I think about, like, it's such a smaller population, that it's probably so much easier to get along, you know?
Yeah.
And you have fewer people straining the same resources, you know what I mean?
I asked what the immigration, I know what immigration for Finland was, and it said that Google told me that it's actually been higher over the past couple of years because of the Ukrainian war, like Ukrainian and Russian, so they're taking Ukrainian
There was some concern that potentially, there's some similarities between Finland and Ukraine, and could Finland be Russia's next target?
But Finland is part of NATO, so I just got really upset thinking about them invading Finland, and I have no affiliation to it.
Don't do it.
Leave that country alone.
So that's the theory.
So you're not buying into it?
No.
Well, as I mentioned, we have confirmation now that this was in fact all just nonsense and satire, because in 2016, Vice did an interview, and Rarigan, the Reddit user, was identified as a 22-year-old named Jack, who claims he made the whole thing
up. up.
39:00
Theory Debunked
He was like, my parents absolutely believe Finland exists. They in no way think Finland is not a real country. I never grew up thinking Finland wasn't a real country.
But I just made this satirical post on someone's Reddit question, and it took on a life of its own, and so that's where it came from. So yeah, I think it's just another, like I said, it's another-
Birds aren't real.
It's another birds aren't real, Garth Brooks joke that just kept going and probably triggers a lot of people. Yeah, you're right. If you're like, are you telling me my heritage is fake?
Yeah.
You know?
Also, I just don't believe that you could like doctor.
Like you're telling me that every single satellite in the world is in on this?
Well, I mean, are you out there with the satellite? Who owns the satellites?
I don't know, but I believe them. Yeah. Space Force.
You don't think Space Force could be in on it?
Well, I just think it wouldn't benefit them.
Like, why would this, other than, like...
This is a perfect country.
The girls are fighting, and we want to keep them to stop fighting. So we're giving them this. I don't know.
I just don't believe it. Other than, like, now it's proven. Now it's proven.
So yeah, I agree with you.
This was nonsense, but I'm glad, you know, I do like a ready deep dive.
I think Colleen's brother went to Finland.
Did he go to Finland, or did he go to Sweden and think he was in Finland? That's again, that's the thing.
That would make me, again, that would be so bad. If somebody started saying this to me in conversation, I'd be like, what are you talking about? I went through customs.
I landed in Finland.
Well, I've been hearing a lot about this. I've seen this on social media. I've seen it on Reddit.
And I was like, this will be something interesting to look into. And I did not realize how much history I was going to have to do. I hope I didn't bore everyone with my history lesson.
No, but I am impressed that we were really on par with us.
I feel like you and I were really into the history for a second there.
Yeah, I did.
Certainly hated history class in school, but fun to learn something. I can't wait for someone to fact check me and tell me about my inaccuracies. I did do my best here, and it was enlightening.
And again, I never even would have thought Finland was Russian, you know?
Yeah, they weren't.
They probably are like, don't tell us we're Russian, we're not. We are our own country.
I hope that somebody from Finland is listening to this podcast and is like, I feel so seen right now. That's my only goal for 2026.
Let's just check real quick and see if we've had a Finnish listener before. We have some Finnish listeners, I'm going to tell you.
Oh my God. You guys.
Let us know.
Do you feel seen? Tell me about your alphabet. I do think it's the same one, but they added three letters because ours is 26 letters and theirs is 29.
And theirs is all vowels that they added, so.
Next week, we are off to our reading weekend and we have a fun episode planned for you. And we're going to take it back to the conspiracy. I guess I wouldn't say it's the conspiracy that started it all.
But the original conspiracy shared with us by Uber driver Michael.
Michael.
Before our podcast even launched.
You're talking about the, you're talking about Abe Lincoln.
John Wilkes Booth. You had Abe Lincoln.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
If you want to know what that super fun conspiracy was, tune in next week.
It's like the worst Uber ride of my life.
And he's the one who started the, I'ma prove it to you, I'ma prove it to you.
Yeah.
You know? Yeah, that's true.
He is.
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See you next Tuesday.