RUSSIAN trucks have queued up for 100 kilometers at the Finnish border ahead of the holiday season, prompting the Nordic nation to ask the European Union for help eliminating the record blockage.

Russia’s booming economy has led to constant traffic headaches in the region as trucks carrying new cars, televisions and machinery transit through Finland and the Baltic nations.

Finland is now as large a trading partner for Russia as the United States because of the surging trans-border traffic, but customs posts on the border are continuously struggling to cope.

While trucks are stuck at the border, retailers in Russia and the transport firms are losing money and local people are afraid to drive on the roads with one lane blocked by Trucks.

Finland’s Transport Minister Anu Vehvilainen had pleaded for the European Commission to influence Russia to reduce the traffic block by increasing electronic customs services, reducing border bureaucracy and developing roads on the Russian side.

Truck queues were about 50 kilometers long yesterday morning at Finland’s busiest border, Vaalimaa, east of Helsinki. On Saturday, however, they stretched to more than 100 kilometers, the Finnish Road Administration said.

“They now probably beat all records so far. A year ago the situation was similarly tough,” senior road administration official, Jukka Tamminen, said yesterday.

Tamminen said he expected the queues to ease and nearly dissolve going into Christmas Eve, but they could still grow overnight.