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Ilia Moshnikov ([email protected])

Ilia (Ilja) Moshnikov is a university lecturer in Karelian language and culture, as well as the subject coordinator. His teaching portfolio includes courses such as Introduction to Karelian Language and Culture, Karelian as a Language of Media and Literature, Karelian Dialects, and Karelian and Russian. Moshnikov defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Eastern Finland in 2021 on the topic Variation of the NUT Participle in Border Karelian Dialects. The opponent for the dissertation was Professor Johanna Laakso from the University of Vienna. Before his current position, Moshnikov worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Karelian Institute. The research Moshnikov has conducted after his dissertation focuses on the use and visibility of the Karelian language on the internet. He has examined Karelian-language websites from the perspectives of virtual linguistic landscape studies and language ideologies, and has also investigated the use of social media in Karelian as well as the visibility of the Karelian language on X (formerly Twitter). Moshnikov worked as a visiting researcher at the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Vienna in spring 2023, and as a teacher of Finnish in the same department during the 2023–2024 academic year. In the 2024–2025 academic year, he worked as a university lecturer in Karelian and Finnish at the University of Eastern Finland’s School of Humanities. Since autumn 2025, he has been working as a university lecturer in Karelian language and culture.

Jeremy Smith ([email protected])

I carry out research on the recent and contemporary history on the countries of the Former Soviet Union. At present, there is an especial emphasis on the five countries of Central Asia. My research interests range from very specific, localized events and their impacts, to broad understandings of the interactions of time and space and the legacies of empires and long-distance trade routes on peripheral landscapes. My current projects involve work on post-Soviet borders, the role concern for ethnic Russians in neighbouring countries plays in Russian policy making, and constitutional arrangements and understandings of national minority rights in new post-Imperial countries.

Joni Virkkunen ([email protected])

Joni Virkkunen (PhD, title of docent) works as a Research Manager at the Karelian Institute. He is also the Director of the VERA Centre for Russian and Border Studies, a member of the executive board of the UEF’s top-level research area Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters (BOMOCULT) and of the cross-faculty Doctoral Programme in Social and Cultural Encounters. His research relates to borders, border governance, cross-border cooperation, EU-Russian relations, regional and cross-border cooperation and transnational migration in Russian and post-Soviet contexts. He has been recently studying, for example, the Northern Dimension policy and the regional impacts of EU-Russia relations, local meanings of the border and cross-border cooperation, the 2015-2016 Arctic migration route through/from Russia to Finland and, recently, temporary protection holders from Ukraine. The latter he has been studying through Finnish and Russian migration and border policies, publicity and public debates, migrants’ everyday insecurities, and informal practices.

Jonna Ojalammi ([email protected])

My research is situated within practical theology and theology of wellbeing, with a particular focus on crises—both individual and collective. In terms of individual crises, my focus is on family relationships. Regarding collective crises, I have explored experiences of meaning during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as older adults’ responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In addition, I have studied the religious and ideological non-alignment of theological education. My most recent research focuses on religious deidentification—a process in which individuals withdraw from organized religion while retaining personally meaningful elements of religiosity.

Karelian-speaking people at the border

This project studied the Karelian people living in both sides of the border between Finland and Russia. A book ‘Karjalankieliset rajalla’ was published in 2021.

Karli Storm ([email protected])

As a member of the three-person InBorder research team, Storm(-Närväinen) is interested in dissecting practices of border- and borderlander governance in democratic, semi-democratic, and authoritarian regimes. The InBorder research team, made up of P.I. Prof. Christofer Berglund (Malmö University, Sweden), Prof. Ketevan Bolkvadze (Lund University, Sweden), and Storm-Närväinen (UEF, KTL), and is charged with investigating official and unofficial practices of borderland governance across three paradigmatic cases–among Russians in Estonia’s Ida-Viru region, Armenians in Georgia’s Javakheti region, and among Talysh in Azerbaijan’s Lenkaran region. Storm-Närväinen is primarily occupied with the Georgian and Azerbaijani aspects of the study, although she is involved in aspects of the desk research phase of the Estonian case as well.

Storm(-Närväinen)’s prior research focused upon the politics of memory and identity among members of ethnic/national minority groups in Georgia, namely among the Georgian Azeri-Turks of the Kvemo Kartli border region. Her geographic area of expertise is the South Caucasus and its constituent states (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan), although her research interests have led her to undertake inquiries touching upon peoples and states in Russia and Central Asia as well. Storm-Närväinen is a native speaker of English and possesses varying levels of proficiency in the Azerbaijani, Finnish, Georgian, Kazakh, and Russian languages as well.

Kati Parppei ([email protected])

Working on the project “Images and Attributes of Enemies in Pre-Revolutionary Russia” (2016-2021). Some teaching, too.

My academic interests include history of mentalities and ideas, Russian history and borderland issues. My approach tends to be that of a cultural historian; I am especially interested in representations of the past, and the ways they have been used in, for instance, supporting nationalistic efforts.
I am also a freelance writer and photographer. Besides topics related to history and culture, I like to write about – and photograph – nature, environment, countryside and all kind of living creatures.

Larisa Leisiö ([email protected])

I am a professor of Russian language at the University of Eastern Finland. My research interests include language contacts, Samoyedic languages, and non-standard varieties of Russian including colloquial Russian, Russian in contact with Finno-Ugric languages, and language use in media. My approach to language is typological and usage-based. I studied Russian-Finnish contact in the speech of Finland Russians, in particular code switching, word order in possessive noun phrases, gender integration of Finnish nouns, and the case of the direct object. I traced the impact of Northern Baltic Finnic influence in Old East Slavic and Old Russian.  I am a specialist in Samoyedic (<Uralic) languages, in particular Nganasan. I conducted field work with Forest Finns in Sweden, Finland Russians, Inari Sámi, Estonian Old Believers, as well as Northern Samoyeds in Siberia: Nganasans, Forest Enets, Forest Nenets, and Tundra Nenets.