Private company

Karelian Trains

Finnish-Russian railway joint venture

Oy Karelian Trains Ltd was a joint venture agreed on 23 November 2006 between Russian Railways (RZhD) and VR Group (Finnish Railways) to facilitate the operation of international express passenger rail services between Helsinki, Finland, and Saint Petersburg, Russia. Karelian Trains was registered in Helsinki; VR and RZhD both owned 50% of the shares. The services are branded as Allegro.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

Nov 23, 2006Founded1
  • HeadquartersLänsi-Pasila1
  • Websitewww.kareliantrains.fi
  • Legal formosakeyhtiö1
  • LEI7437006UOJDDWADHML173
  • StatusInactive3
  • LEI statusRetired3
  • Registered addressPL 488, FI-00101 Helsinki, Finland3
  • Registered withFinnish Patent and Registration Office, 2076341-93

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Allegro
Photo: Морозов Л.Н., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

Oy Karelian Trains Ltd was a joint venture agreed on 23 November 2006 between Russian Railways (RZhD) and VR Group (Finnish Railways) to facilitate the operation of international express passenger rail services between Helsinki, Finland, and Saint Petersburg, Russia. Karelian Trains was registered in Helsinki; VR and RZhD both owned 50% of the shares. The services are branded as Allegro.2

Products and brands

Services were launched on 12 December 2010 using Alstom Pendolino trains ordered in September 2007. Investments will also be made in infrastructure to enable higher speeds to be achieved. Together, this has cut journey times between the two cities from the previous 5+1⁄2 hours to 3 hours and 27 minutes. There are four daily train departures each direction, compared to two for the older service. The daily locomotive-hauled night train Helsinki–Moscow (branded as Tolstoi) will continue as before.

Travel visas are required for many foreign nationals, including Finns, to enter Russia and for Russians to enter Finland. Passport and customs checks are conducted on board the trains. Traditionally, the passport and customs checks have delayed the trains by at least 30 minutes according to the timetable (1 hour for 30 km Vyborg-the border).

During the first year of operation, the service carried 280,000 passengers, far more than expected. The trips made by Finns to Russia were mainly business trips, while Russians came to Finland largely on leisure trips.

All rail connections with Russia ceased in March 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The four trains are now redundant and Finland would like to donate them to Ukraine however they are jointly owned with Russian Railways - RZhD.

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In December 2023, it was announced that VR Group had assumed the financial obligations of the Karelian Trains company since the latter could no longer meet them itself. VR Group plans to reuse the Sm6 rolling stock in domestic operations.

From Wikipedia’s article on Karelian Trains, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. Nov 23, 2006Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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