They are eaten throughout Finland as well as in adjacent areas such as Estonia and Russian Karelia.

The oldest traditional pasties usually had a rye crust, but the North Karelian and Ladoga Karelian variants also contained wheat to improve the quality of the crust.

In the 19th century, first potato, and then buckwheat were introduced as fillings, and later, boiled rice and millet.

Today, the most popular version has a thin rye crust with a filling of rice.

Karelian pasties have had traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) status in Europe since 2003.