Farm jobs
share of employment, %
WOODEN / BRIDGE
0110
Finland / Poland / Russia
Albert Gebhard, Log Driving, c. 1900 / public domain
HITCH / Group 8 / Regions
The
Wooden
Bridge
Finland, Poland and Russia all sold wood under the Tsar. We follow that one industry for 170 years to see why their incomes came apart.
Finland, Poland, Russia, 1850 to 2024
Title "Wooden bridge" is historian Markku Kuisma's phrase for Finnish timber exports, quoted in Jensen-Eriksen (2004), LSE PhD thesis. IIM Ahmedabad, 27 October 2026.
1870 / Origins
Under one Tsar,
on similar
incomes
Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire from 1809, and central Poland the Tsar's Kingdom of Poland from 1815. In 1870 their incomes were close. Their rights were not.
Finland
$1,817
Polish lands
$1,575
Russian Empire
$1,596
GDP per head in 1870, 2011 international dollars
FinlandIts own Diet, its own currency from 1860 and its own customs border. Its mills sold paper into Russia behind the imperial tariff.
PolandLost most of its autonomy after the risings of 1830 and 1863. Even town names changed: Radomsko became Noworadomsk.
RussiaSerfdom ended in 1861. By 1917 the state held two thirds of the forest, and timber exports earned it 825 million rubles in 1909 to 1914.
Sources Maddison Project Database 2023 (Bolt and van Zanden); "Russian Empire" is the former USSR territory series. Brain, Song of the Forest (2011), ch. 1. Sabel and Saxenian (2008), Sitra Report 80, p. 28. Borders: Natural Earth, modern lines shown for orientation.
From the archive
1860 to 2022 / Incomes
Finland pulled
ahead before
independence
1860 to 1913Finnish mills sell paper into the Russian market behind the imperial tariff wall. By 1913 Finland earns $3,365 a head and the Russian Empire $2,254.
1913 to 1950Independence costs Finland its biggest customer, so it turns to Britain. Russia loses a decade to war, revolution and civil war.
1950 to 1989Finland reaches three times Poland's income. The Polish plan economy stalls through the 1980s.
1989 to 2022Russian income falls by a third in six years. Poland's grows 3.6 times, and the gap with Finland narrows to a quarter.
Finland's income as a multiple of
1.21×Poland's
1.49×Russia's
in 1913
5.6mFinland
37.9mPoland
146.7mRussia
people in 2022
Source Maddison Project Database 2023, GDP per head in 2011 international dollars. Russia is the former USSR territory up to 1989 and the Russian Federation from 1990. Underlying estimates: Kuboniwa (2019), Gregory (1982), Markevich and Harrison (2011), Malinowski and van Zanden (2017). Every fifth year plus turning points.
From the archive
Living in towns
share of population, %
Deaths
per 1,000 people a year
Trade
exports plus imports, % of GDP
1960 to 2024 / Structure
Poland left
the farm last
In 1991 one Polish worker in four was still in farming, against one in eleven in Finland.
Russia moved to the towns early, under planning. Then its death rate rose from 11 to 15 per thousand between 1990 and 1995.
Poland's trade went from 44% of GDP in 1995 to about 100% as it joined German and Nordic supply chains.
FinlandPolandRussia
Source World Bank, World Development Indicators (SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS, SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS, SP.DYN.CDRT.IN, NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS), downloaded 22 October 2026. Employment data start in 1991, Polish trade data in 1995.
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii, Lumber mill on the Chernaia River, c. 1910 / Library of Congress
In 1989 the USSR felled eight times as much wood as Finland, and earned a tenth as much from selling paper abroad.
Wood felled, million m³
Paper exports, $ billion
The forest paradox
Russia has 37 times
Finland's forest,
and earns less
from it
Forest export earnings per hectare of forest, 2024.
Russia
$0
Finland
$0
Poland
$0
Sources FAOSTAT Forestry (wood, pulp and paper products including furniture, export value in current dollars; roundwood production). Forest area: World Bank WDI (AG.LND.FRST.K2), latest year. Downloaded 22 October 2026.
From the archive
Industrialist, minister
Rudolf Walden
Bought the Simpele mill, chaired the Paper Mills Association from 1918, later Minister of Defence.
Cartel manager, diplomat
Hjalmar Procopé
Ran the joint paper sales office 1931 to 1938. Foreign minister twice, then envoy in Washington.
Paper exports, $ billion
Finland against the USSR, then Russia, and Poland
Ahlström mills, Varkaus / Rafael Roos, Helsinki City Museum, CC BY 4.0
Chapter one / Finland
Finland's forests
paid for its
independence
1865Fredrik Idestam opens a groundwood mill at Tampere. The company Nokia Ab follows in 1871.
1913Eight firms lead, among them Ahlström, Kymi, Serlachius and Gutzeit. Most of their paper goes to Russia.
1918The new state buys Gutzeit from its Norwegian owners. Walden and Serlachius are made consuls in Kiev and Odessa so they can keep selling paper.
1920sForest products bring in 80 to 90% of Finland's export earnings, a share that lasts into the 1950s.
1938Finland supplies 23% of Britain's softwood and 40% of its pit props.
1956The British ambassador proposes a boycott of cheaper Soviet timber that is undercutting the Finns. The Board of Trade says no.
1970On 18 December, 23 managing directors agree to ration new mills. The Bank of Finland had refused their foreign loans the year before.
Sources Sabel and Saxenian (2008), Sitra 80, pp. 28 to 30. Jensen-Eriksen (2004), LSE PhD, citing UK National Archives CAB 134/1100 and FO 371/111464. Jensen-Eriksen and Ojala, "Tackling Market Failure or Building a Cartel?". Nevalainen and Yliaska (2021), Business History 63(8). FAOSTAT.
From the archive
Owner, 1917 and since
The Russian state
Held 65.9% of the forest by 1917 and all of it after 1918. It still does; firms lease their cutting areas.
Founders, 1992
Ilim Group
Set up by the brothers Boris and Mikhail Zingarevich with Zakhar Smushkin. Now Russia's largest pulp and paper company.
Forest exports, $ billion
All wood, pulp and paper products, and raw logs alone
Ivan Shishkin, Lumbering, 1867 / public domain
Chapter two / Russia
Three regimes,
one export:
unprocessed wood
1888A Forest Protection Law tries to stop private owners from clearing their land.
1909From 1909 to 1914, timber exports earn the treasury 825 million rubles.
1918The Bolsheviks nationalise all forest. A Forest Code follows in 1923.
1928Industrial planners complain they may cut only 110 of 700 million m³ of yearly growth, and that Finland and Sweden do better abroad.
1931Canada bans Soviet timber cut by forced labour. The House of Commons debates the same question that June.
2006Softwood log exports peak at about 37 million m³. Export duties follow in 2007.
2022Raw log exports are banned from 1 January, then sanctions hit. Forest exports fall from $16.9 billion to $7.6 billion by 2024.
Sources Brain, Song of the Forest (2011), pp. 21 to 22, 90 to 91. Hansard, House of Commons, 3 June 1931. Auckland Star, 28 February 1931 (Canadian ban). MBIE New Zealand, Russia and China log trade paper. Timber-Online, May 2021. Interfax on Ilim. FAOSTAT.
From the archive
Family multinational
Gebrüder Thonet
Viennese bentwood makers. Radomsko, opened in 1880, was the last of their six Central European plants.
Buyer, January 1961
Ingvar Kamprad
Boycotted by Swedish suppliers, he went looking for factories in communist Poland.
Wooden furniture exports, $ billion
2000 to 2024
Thonet factory, Noworadomsk, postcard 1906 to 1914 / public domain
Chapter three / Poland
Poland replanted
its forest, then
sold the chair
1880The Thonet family opens a bentwood factory in Radomsko. Under Russian rule its sign reads Bratya Tonet above Bracia Thonet.
1924The State Forests are founded. They still manage 77% of Polish forest.
1945Forest cover is at a historic low of 20.8%. The borders move west, and about 4.5 million Poles settle former German lands.
1961Kamprad searches a Radomsko factory attic for bentwood tools and orders 500 chairs. They become the ÖGLA.
1991Tadeusz Chmiel founds Black Red White, today the largest Polish furniture group.
2004Poland joins the EU, and German and Scandinavian buyers are a truck ride away.
2024Furniture exports reach $8.8 billion, five times the 2000 level. Forest cover is back to 31%.
Sources Referowska (2025), on Polish forest management since 1945. Kruszewski (1967), University of Chicago PhD. IKEA Museum, "ÖGLA chair 1962". Gebrüder Thonet company history. World Bank WDI. FAOSTAT.
From the archive
Comparison
What made the difference
Finland
Poland
Russia
Who owned the forest
About a million private owners hold 60%, and sell two thirds of the industry's wood.
The State Forests, managing 77% since 1924.
The state: two thirds by 1917, all of it since 1918.
Main market
Russia until 1917, then Britain, then Western Europe.
The Soviet bloc until 1989, then Germany and the EU.
Britain for raw timber, undercutting the Finns in the 1950s. China after 2000.
What the state did
Bought mills, negotiated markets, rationed investment, devalued the currency.
Planned the industry, then let private firms take it over after 1990.
Owned the forest and set quotas. Banned raw log exports in 2022.
Distance to the sea
Lakes and rivers float logs to Baltic ports.
A short haul to German buyers.
Most forest lies far inland, in Siberia and the Far East.
Where value was added
Paper, then the machines that make it.
Furniture, mostly for foreign brands.
Logs and sawnwood.
How shocks landed
Independence forced a turn west. War reparations built an engineering industry.
Partition, war and a border shift, then a fast recovery after 1990.
Revolution, forced industrialisation, the 1990s collapse, sanctions.
Sources As on slides 05 to 08. Waterways and cheap water power: A. Solitander, "Finnish Woodworking Industry", 1933.
From the archive
For discussion
Is Poland's furniture industry where Finland's paper industry was in 1960, or is it stuck as a subcontractor?
One caveat on our own argument: geography helped Finland. In 1933 its industry pointed to "numerous waterways for floating the timber down to the mills". Most Russian forest has no such route.
Ivan Shishkin, Pine Forest, 1872 / public domain
Our argument
What the forest
tells us
A large resource did not make Russia rich. Under the Tsar, the Soviets and today, the state owned the forest and sold it mostly raw.
Finland got rich by processing. Private owners, cartels and a state that negotiated its markets moved it from logs to paper to paper machines.
Poland shows a late start can be made up. It rebuilt its forest and its industry after 1945 and 1989, but it assembles for foreign brands and keeps a small share of the value.
Thank you Group 8. Data and code: project folder. Full source list on the appendix slide.
Appendix / How we know
Sources, and how far to trust them
Firm
- World Bank WDI, from 1960. FAOSTAT Forestry, from 1961.
- Maddison 2023 for Finland from 1860, built on Finnish historical national accounts.
- UK National Archives files on Finnish and Soviet timber in the 1950s, as cited in Jensen-Eriksen (2004).
- Hansard, House of Commons, 3 June 1931.
- IKEA Museum on the 1961 Radomsko order.
- Press archive: Financial Times 1976 to 1998 (Keyworth, Bobinski, Williams, McIvor) and British press reports of 1923 and 1933.
Reconstructed
- Russian income 1885 to 1913 (Gregory 1982) and 1913 to 1928 (Markevich and Harrison 2011).
- Polish income before 1913 (Malinowski and van Zanden 2017).
- Brain, Song of the Forest (2011): archival history of Russian forestry.
- Sabel and Saxenian (2008) on the Finnish forest cluster, drawing on Reunala et al. (1998).
Handle with care
- "Russian Empire" before 1990 uses Maddison's former USSR territory, which includes Central Asia and the Caucasus.
- FAOSTAT values are in current dollars, so we compare countries in the same year only.
- Per hectare figures divide 2024 exports by the latest forest area.
- Newspaper clippings: dates and titles of the British press items to be checked against the archive record before the deck is final.