Tuesday 15 May 2007

Throat of Sea and Backsea?


The NATO forces have an unusually large naval exercise in the Baltic Sea. When the fleet entered Gothenburg harbour in Sweden last weekend rallies were held against NATO as Sweden is neutral is in not allied to any country. Finland is also considered neutral and neither of the two countries is part of the NATO joint forces but both countries are considered to be pro NATO and are taking part in the naval exercise.

The Swedish and Finnish defence forces have already earlier had joint exercises like the joint air force one a couple of weeks ago and are negotiating about the possibilities of joining their forces in training and acquiring military equipment.

Guess this NATO fleet exercise is a thing that could never have happened in the old days with the cold war, and it will be interesting to see what comes out of this exercise so near Russia, as there has already been turbulence about moving the Estonian war memorial statue for instance and the top summit between EU and Russia on the door step in a few days. Maybe nothing at all happens but I would bet on that the eastern neighbour has something in mind.

According to a survey 65% of the Finns do not believe that the Finnish-Russian relationships were worsened by the Estonian statue argument and according to another survey more than a fourth Finns are pro NATO.

Anyway, looking at the Baltic Sea two quite funny Finnish names for parts of it pops up, “Merenkurkku” which I get to “Throat of sea” or “Sea throat” and “Perämeri” which would be “Backsea”, “Bottomsea” or maybe “Anterior Sea”.
What they really supposed to be in English? I would be very pleased to know and you can give me any suggestions!


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