Nasser* told InfoMigrants that he was brought to the border alongside hundreds of other migrants coming from Syria, Yemen, Belarus, Iraq, and even countries as far as Somalia.

The 43-year-old Syrian has been trying to get to Finland to seek asylum, but the Finnish authorities have closed their border to stem the flow of migrants that has seen an increase in the last couple of weeks.

Desperate to find a solution, and stuck in a remote place where freezing temperatures can drop to -15 and -25 degrees Celcius at this time of the year, Nasser feels stuck, used by the Russian authorities and tricked by the person that helped him arrive to the North of Europe. He fears for his life, and is desperate to find a solution. 

"I have been here for more than two weeks now, and deep down I am really desperate and just hoping for better days to come, as soon as possible. I feel like I am living in a hell made of ice, where my life got to a point where there is no way out, where it’s the end of the road, the end of MY long road since I left my country, Syria.

I never thought I would be in this kind of situation, but here I am, with other hundreds of people, stuck in a place so cold that I have long moments during the day and night where I can barely feel my body. But I can’t give up, and despite being down a rabbit hole and having dark thoughts, I can’t give up. 

Someone suggested being transported here by someone, a fellow Syrian compatriot that I met a couple of weeks ago, who put me in contact with someone who helps people pass the border from Russia to Finland. I got a phone number, and I wanted to reach out and find out about the possibilites of leaving Russia. I have been here for two years now and I have been scared to be caught and sent back home by the police.

Despite being down a rabbit hole and having dark thoughts, I can’t give up. 

After a couple of days of thinking if I should do it or not, I decided to call that person and ask what would be needed from me to get to the North and be taken by the border to try to cross it and finally get into the European Union, which has been my goal since I had to leave Syria.

The person told me that I would have to give him around 1500 dollars to pay for the transportation, for food and also to give cash to the people I meet along the way, the police, or even the people working for him.

That was a lot of money, but I was desperate, so I had to find ways to get that amount to send him the money and get some cash with me for traveling.

The person to whom I sent the money is based in Istanbul, he has a strong Turkish accent and told me that he has businesses between Turkey and Russia. 

Followed by police

I have been living, or may I say, surviving in Russia since the summer of 2021, and I have been staying in Moscow at different places: some fellow Syrians, but also people that I met along the way helped me to have something to eat every day, and have a place to stay while I have been trying to find a solution to go to Western Europe.

It has been very tough, very tough, but I didn’t have a choice: I was an English teacher and a translator back in Damascus, and at the beginning of 2021, the police started following me and arrested me in February of that year, saying that I was a traitor and that I was giving information to foreign countries about Syria, that I was a spy working for other countries and a threat to the regime.

I was just talking with people abroad because I studied in England and Scotland when I was a student and made a lot of friends there. But it's also because I speak fluent English, that a lot of people from the regime think that I am a menace for them, that I am against the government. The paranoia is at an all-time high, and the violence is the only answer for the government and the police.

Jailed, tortured in Syria

I was taken to jail for many weeks, and I was tortured. Sleep deprivation, burned with cigarettes, I got electric wires put on me, I got deeply hurt and I still have many scars from that time all over my body and back. I was hurt and injured by all those bad treatments and I thought my life would be done.

I got released after a few months, probably because they thought I was not a threat anymore or because they thought that I "learned my lesson" to stay in my lane and not contact people overseas, but they told me that they would keep following me and that they knew each people of my family and would hurt them if I do anything against the regime. I was petrified, I lost around 25 kilos and just wanted one thing: escape the country. 

Paranoia is at an all-time high, and the violence is the only answer for the government and the police.

I didn’t have that many options, the only one I had was to leave for Russia, as someone I know had been there since 2019 and told me that he could have a Russian friend, a rich friend, who needed an English teacher and sponsor me, have me there while I was looking for a solution to go to Western Europe.

My friend did put me in contact with someone working for that rich friend who was able to get me a visa for one month, but I had to go to Iraq and from there go to Dubai and take a flight to Moscow. It cost me 4000 dollars. I left one night and never looked back. Once I got to Iraq, I had to go fly to Dubai, and I arrived in Moscow. My contact was there waiting for me at the airport and I was scared of being caught and sent home. 

In Russia -- living in fear of getting caught

Going to Russia was the first part of my plan to go to Western Europe, but the plan hasn’t gone well so far, to say the least. After one month, my visa was not valid anymore, and that rich Russian man kicked me out of the apartment where I was staying with other people.

I started living in fear, as I knew that if I was caught, I would have been sent to jail. After that, I started living with eight fellow Syrians, and moving into other apartments with some friends every two, three weeks to avoid being located, or arrested.

On some days we helped clean some rich people’s houses and we were paid a bit of cash and given some food. In my mind, I was only thinking about those sacrifices, and to leave as soon as possible, and be on the road to go to Western Europe.

It has been difficult to get money, to save some money, but I did hide some month after month.

With the war in Ukraine, the borders were closing one after another, and we were receiving threats and some police were asking us for money to not take us to jail. I had to live in many different parts of Moscow, and until October, I had no alternative but to wait and check what would be the best option to leave Russia. And that opportunity to go by the Finnish border appeared, and here I am now.

Also read: How asylum seekers pay to cross Russian-Finnish border

Getting to the Finnish border

We were transported by car, from Moscow to St Petersburg, and we had to stop many times because there was a lot of military and police along the way. Our driver told us that we could get arrested, and if we did, we had to bribe the police and pray that they would let us go. Lucky us, we didn’t get caught and we reached St Petersburg. We stayed in the city for a couple of days, and we had to pay another guy in cash to be taken by car to be dropped off at the Finnish border.

We paid many policemen along the way, and even when we got closer to the Finnish border, we had to pay one person to use a bike. That was weird because the Russian border guards were not doing anything to stop us, some of them were laughing, and they were talking with some drivers that took other migrants here.

They know what is going on, and we all feel the same: we are being used by the Russian government to put pressure on the European Union, to put pressure on Finland.

We all feel that we are being used, as animals stuck in a place where we can’t escape.

It’s a trap. I heard a few people did cross the border some days ago, but I haven’t seen them. I don’t think more people will cross the border now. Nobody can cross the border anymore, it seems closed and we are stuck here.

Some of us sleep in tents, some others stay in cars but have to pay for that like if it was a night at a hotel. It’s cold, super cold, and I don’t know how long I am going to be able to handle it. There are other Syrians, and people from Somalia, and Yemen, and we are all scared and don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know what to do, we feel like we are in a dead-end zone. We try to stay positive and support each other but it’s very, very hard. No human should be going through something like this. 

We all feel that we are being used, as animals stuck in a place where we can’t escape. Putting people in this kind of situation is inhumane, the people that brought us here lied to us and made money by lying to us. I feel that I have no way out and that I will die here, in the cold.

I want a better life, I don’t want to be here. I just hope for the best and hope that we will be taken out of this situation. I can’t give up, I won’t give up, but sometimes, some dark thoughts take over. I thought I had gone through a lot of bad experiences in my life so far since I got arrested back in Syria and tortured, and I never expected I would go through a 'hell of ice' like that in my life." 

*name changed

Also read: Finland to shut last border crossing with Russia