Dominions of Sweden and Finland, have anything to say at Riksdags and other meetings..."" Between 1561 and 1629 Sweden made conquests in the Eastern Baltic. All of them were lost in accordance with the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, which concluded the Great Northern War. Estonia placed itself under Swedish rule in 1561 to receive protection against Russia and Poland as the Livonian Order lost their foothold in the Baltic provinces. Territorially it represented the northern part of present-day Estonia. The area was significantly populated by Estonian Swedes, who inhabited the area for centuries after Sweden lost control of it. After the Soviet
Finland–Russia border Finnish reindeer fence. Unlike other Western countries, the government of Finland did not protect illegal border crossers but returned them to the Soviet authorities if captured. Illegal border crossers had to get through Finland to e.g. Sweden in order to defect to the West. In the Moscow Armistice signed on 1944 between Finland, Soviet Union and United Kingdom, a small peninsula towards the Gulf of Finland, Porkkala, was rented to Soviet Union as a military base. This created in effect a southern border crossing to the Soviet exclave, operating all the way to 1956. Border crossings were in and .