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*** FINLAND 2015 - WEEKS 6~7 *** |
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This week's
Photo Gallery |
Wild Flora of Eastern Finland |
Canoeing on the Ruunaa Rapids |
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Ilomantsi's Orthodox Church and war cemetery: after a brief re-visit to the Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias at the edge of the village by the lake, we paused at Ilomantsi's war cemetery where some 400 war graves from the Winter and Continuation Wars are laid out in rows (see above left) along with a memorial to the 1918 Civil War dead. Behind the railway station on the southern side of the village, sidings were filled with loaded logging wagons alongside stacks of cut timber awaiting loading. From the railway bridge, the single track railway could be seen stretching away in a perfectly straight line into the distance through the forests.
Ruhkaranta Camping: a short way along Route 5004 from Ilomantsi into the eastern forests, we turned off to Ruhkaranta Lomakeskus. This small campsite was set on a forested hill-top overlooking 2 lakes, but the rough grass camping area had limited space and sloped dramatically down towards Nuorajärvi with little chance of levelling. We managed however to back in to a flattish spot between pine trees further uphill just within cable's length of a power supply (Photo 2 - Ruhkaranta Camping), and settled in looking out through the pines across the lake with the midges swarming worse than ever (see right). The sky cleared later in the evening and the sun set over the forested hill-side beyond Nuorajärvi producing a spectacular display with sun-tinged clouds reflected in the still waters of the lake (Photo 3 - Sunset over Nuorajärvi) (see below left).
Most of the ironworks was demolished after the 1908 closure, and the village and its farms were totally razed during the 1939~44 Soviet occupation and battles fought around Möhkö. But parts of the workshops, 2 of the blast-furnaces, and the ironworks canal have been conserved as part of the Möhkö Ironworks Museum whose displays are housed in the former Pytinki manor house. We walked around the remains of the blast-furnaces and along the river bank by the Möhkönkoski rapids, but gathering heavy cloud warned of the next rain squall; we hurried back to shelter in the camper. After 10 minutes of lashing rain, the gusty wind brought the next sunny spell enabling us to explore the huge reconstructed water-wheel, driven by a side-channel of the canal to power pumps and bellows for the ironworks blast-furnace, and alongside this the reconstructed canal locks where ore was delivered and pig-iron ingots transported away (Photo 4 - Restored canal locks at Mökö ironworks) (see above right). The locks emptied into the main River Koitajoki which in turn flowed into Nuorajärvi. Beached down on the river bank a large barge (see left), which in the 1950s had served as a floating hostel for lumberjacks, was now converted to the Möhkön Manta café, and alongside this a bonfire had been stacked ready for Saturday's Midsummer celebration here at Möhkö. But the next downpour threatened, causing us to hurry back over the bridge to George.
Today we had arranged to meet the Pastor at the
church; he was clearly an
educated man who had studied art history, and now told us more about the history of the
church and its florid paintings which covered the upper part of the interior (Photo
12 - Ilomantsi Lutheran Church). Most
intriguing of all however was the painting which decorated the church's former
weapons room, where those attending services would once have left their guns, now a
parish meeting room: despite the Biblical strictures against portraying images
of God, the artist had covered the rear wall with a august figure of the
Almighty sitting aloft in the heavens on fluffy clouds, his hand resting on a small
Camp at Taistelijan Talo (Fighters' House)
in Hattuvaara: leaving Ilomantsi, we headed north on Route 522 towards
Hattuvaara, and just beyond Lake Mekrijärvi near to Kallioniemi we paused at a
Winter War memorial by the bridge crossing the wide Koitajoki river flowing from Nuorajärvi.
It was here in late November 1939 that a scratch
Thankful for our sat-nav's reassuring guidance
and the Itäisin
piste (Easternmost Point) signs at crucial junctions, where logging tracks
disappeared into the otherwise featureless forest, we pressed on, crossing the Koitajoki
river which here meandered across the nearby border into Russian territory to
re-appear into Finland further With the worst of the dark rain clouds past and sky brightening, we returned along the pathway, fascinated by the political significance and curiosity of standing at this remote and isolated spot marking the Easternmost Point of both Finland and the whole of mainland EU; only the island of Cyprus lies further to the east. In fact this projecting salient of Finnish territory lies 70kms further east than St Petersburg. The northward border here was defined by the 1617 Treaty of Stolbow between Imperial Russia and the Swedish Empire; but more relevant to modern day history, the southward line of the border signified Finland's revised border forcibly imposed by Stalin's USSR by the 1940 Treaty of Moscow ending the Winter War, with the loss of huge areas of Finnish territory seized by Russia (Click here for map of Finland's Easternmost Point and Russian border). Gaps began appearing in the cloud and a few moments of sun enabled us to take photos at the wooden platform by the symbolic Easternmost Point marker-post (Photo 17 - Easternmost Point) (see above right), and long lens shots of the actual border-posts set on an island 150m out in Lake Virmajärvi - blue and white posts on the Finnish side, maroon and green on the Russian (Photo 18 - Border-posts) (see left).
Hattuvaara:
back at Hattuvaara, we walked over to the tiny wooden Orthodox chapel (tsasouna
in Karelian) dedicated to Sts Peter and Paul; the oldest such Karelian Orthodox
chapel in Finland, it is said by tradition always to have been here, but by more
authoritative sources to have been built in 1792
(Photo
19 - Hattuvaara Orthodox chapel). A poster advertised
the forthcoming festival of Petrun on 29 June with its traditional Praasniekka
Northwards on Route 522 Via Karelia to Patvinsuo: leaving Ilomantsi for the final time, we headed
northwards again on the lonely Route 522 through the forests, and for 10 kms
beyond Hattuvaara the Via Karelia road was well-surfaced even if narrow (see above left). The road-sides were
lined with occasional stacks of cut timber awaiting collection (see below left). As expected, the
asphalt then ran out but the gravelled surface was generally well-compacted and
smooth going.
North to Lieksa: after another midgy night, we were both nursing sorely bitten necks and faces; we hoped our photographic results from yesterday would have made being so badly bitten worthwhile! Patvinsuo had been a delightful wild-camp but this year the mossies had been unduly bothersome. Back along the approach road, we returned to Kitsi and turned north towards Lieksa. Route 522 passed through isolated villages and wilderness forest-land which stretched away as far as the eye could see, eventually leading to the junction with the main Route 73 and across the wide Pielinen waterway into Lieksa. Bemused at being back in an urban environment after the peace of the wilds, we parked at the busy K-Market supermarket to shop for 3 days' worth of provisions for our forthcoming stay at Ruunaa Trekking Area. We eventually found the public library some 3 kms in the forested outskirts to use their wi-fi network to consult the weather forecast; our time at Ruunaa looked disappointingly cloudy with some rain.
Today had been a thoroughly rewarding 8 km walk with its Cloudberry and Cranberry floral highlights. But more memorably, these had been the loneliest, most isolated and remote wilderness lands we had ever walked, with not another soul to be seen and just the silence of the desolate marshlands punctuated by the melancholy calls of the Curlew for company; what could be better. That evening back at camp at Ruunaa Trekking Centre, we enjoyed another supper of sausages grilled over the camp-fire.
We returned around the lanes for our final night at Ruunaa Trekking Centre, after 2 thoroughly fulfilling days in the Ruunaa Trekking Area with excellent wilderness walking, a wealth of flora photography and the additional spectacle of seeing the dramatic displays of white-water canoeing skills on the Neitikoski Rapids. So rewarding had the photographic opportunities been that we have this time included two extra photo galleries: Wild Flora of Eastern Finland and Canoeing on the Ruunaa Rapids A forested back-road north to Kuhmo: after a re-stock of provision at the supermarket in Lieksa, we headed north towards Kuhmo. Instead of taking the main Routes 73/75 via Nurmes, this year we planned to follow amore easterly by-road, Route 524 through Nurmijärvi. Our sat-nav however had other ideas, resolutely refusing even to acknowledge this route, and insisting that the fastest route was via Nurmes and the two main roads. We pressed on forward on with the minor road, eventually persuading the sat-nav against its better judgement to give us a timing for what the map showed was the shorter 80 kms route to rejoin Route 75 just before Kuhmo; the sat-nav insisted that this route would take us almost 4 hours! There was only one conclusion: the central section of this route was on unsurfaced roads. How far they lasted, and what condition they were in we had no idea, the sky was now gloomily overcast, the road surface even at this early stage not of the best, and timber trucks pounded past the other way; it did not augur well, but we pressed on feeling increasingly nervous. Were we being foolhardy?
After 25 kms we reached Nurmijärvi, more a cluster
of semi-derelict wooden shacks and closed shop than a village. The map showed a
minor, unsurfaced lane ending at the Russian border 17 Kms eastwards amid
utterly desolate terrain, and dotted with a number of war memorials; clearly
this area had been one of the Soviets' 1939 Winter War invasion routes and scene
of intense fighting
Part-way across this uninhabited stretch of road,
we crossed the boundary from North Karelia into the province of Kainuu, and
began to notice distinctive sign-boards with the inscription Valtion - Metsää
(see above left);
clearly it had something to do with forest (Metsä was a word we knew as
in Metsä-hallitus - Forest Authority),
but at this stage we could only guess at the meaning; we later learnt that the
sign means 'state forest', delineating public-owned from private forest land
given the Finnish passion for hunting. As we came closer towards
the Route 75 junction, the terrain although forested became less severe with the
occasional forester's shack. We passed the junction with a narrow unsurfaced
lane leading into the wilderness towards the Russian border where the map showed
more war memorials; this must have been part of the Kuhmo Front along another of
the 1939 invasion routes, perfect terrain for the Finns' highly successful
Motti tactics of breaking up and separating columns of Soviet troops and
armour strung out along narrow lanes through otherwise impenetrable forest and
bog.
Lentuankosken Leirintä (Camping), a hospitable, family-run and beautifully located campsite: across the Lamnasjärvi bridge and some 12 kms north of Kuhmo, a lane leads out to Lentuankosken Leirintä (Camping) which was to be the base for our time at Kuhmo. This straightforward and welcoming campsite, in a beautiful shore-side setting looking out across Poroselkä Lake a side arm of Lamnasjärvi, has been run by the same family since 1965 (Photo 32 - Lentuankosken Camping). This was the first time we had camped on such lush turf since the Åland Islands and probably the last for a while, and that evening we lit the barbecue also for the first time this trip; we were looking forward to tomorrow's day in camp in this glorious location. The following morning, an early clear sun soon faded and the forecast cloud gathered, but we spent a productive day catching up with household jobs, writing and editing photos. Despite an overcast evening, we cooked supper again over the barbecue and although there was no flaring sunset, the pink late sky reflected on clouds and the still waters of the lake with an evening fisherman in his boat gave softly lit evening photographs (Photo 33 - Soft evening light on Poroselkä Lake).
Motti tactics: at first the Soviet invasion went as planned
and advanced along the two roads overcoming Finnish resistance. The Finns
withdrew to prepared defensive lines and dug in at these strong point as bases
from which to counter-attack: Jyrkänkoski on the southern Saunajärvi road
and Tyrävaara on the northern Hukkajärvi road. At these two points just
10 kms from Kuhmo the Soviet invasion was brought to a halt in late December
1939 and in the 105 days of the Winter War, the Red Army were never able to
advance further into Finland. In late January 1940, the re-grouped and
reinforced Finnish forces began the counter-attack, cutting road connections
along the two invasion routes and encircling trapped columns of Soviets troops;
and after that the war continued through that harsh winter until the armistice
of 13 March 1940 as a series of bitterly fought Motti battles along the
invasion roads. Despite the apparent advantage of the Soviets' vast superiority
of troop numbers, tanks and heavy artillery together with air supremacy, the
boggy,
Civilian casualties and evacuation; impact and aftermath of the Winter War at
Kuhmo: when the invasion began, most civilians in the Kuhmo area were
still at their homes and farms. Evacuation started after the invasion and border
guards went round outlying farms, many several kms from a road, to organise
evacuation of civilians. The first casualties of the war occurred at
Laamasenvaara farm just 5 kms from the border when a young border guard sent to
evacuate civilians was killed along
Our visit to the Winter War battle fields and memorials around Kuhmo (Click here for map and commentary on the Winter War Kuhmo Front): we set off to explore as far as the state of roads along the modern equivalents of the two invasion routes of Saunajärvi and Hukkajärvi would allow; we wanted to find monuments and memorials, but more importantly to get a feel for the terrain along the two valleys' narrow forest roads on which the heavily outnumbered Finns in 1939~40 had employed Motti tactics to good effect to halt the unprovoked invasion of their homeland. We returned south through Kuhmo and Route 75 and reached the site of the crucial Finnish defensive strong-point at Jyrkänkoski to which the Finnish troops had retreated in mid-December 1939,having fought tenacious delaying actions along the Saunajärvi road. Here the Soviet invasion was halted, just 10 kms from Kuhmo; although no major battles took place here, the position became a base from which to launch counter attacks against the Mottis trapped along the narrow Saunajärvi forest road. Despite the ferocious midges, we walked around the remains of the defensive strong-point with its granite and barbed-wire tank-traps (see above left), restored trenches and dugouts and pieces of military hardware, trying to imagine what this would all have been like in the winter of 1939~40 (see above rigt). We drove on to the road junction at Rasti, another scene of fierce fighting, and turned into Route 524. The Soviets had captured this key road intersection and Finnish attempts to dislodge them from Rasti were fruitless until the January counter-offensive which splintered the Soviet advance into Motti encirclements along the length of the Saunajärvi approach road, The Motti at Rasti was the largest in size, and remained encircled and pinned down by the Finns until the end of the war.
End of the road at the Russian border:
earlier we had passed a road sign with the word Rajavartiolaitos which we later translated as
Border Guard surveillance. As we now moved on from the Kilpelänkangas parking
area, a Border Guard patrol van drove past; we thought they would stop and
question our presence here so close to the border but they continued without
stopping. Shortly beyond this point, we passed the Laamasenvaara farm
The Hukkajärvi road 1939~40 invasion route: we retreated
back along the Saunajärvi road, passing an enormous Motti (in its true
sense) of cut timber which awaited collection by the logging trucks (see left), and reached
a turning which seemed from the map to link through to the northern invasion
route along the Hukkajärvi road; it would clearly save a lengthy drive back
trough Kuhmo, but would it be passable? In fact the road was asphalt right
through to the junction at Korkea at its northern end; we turned eastwards
passing Kiekinkoski where the few Finnish defenders had retreated after being
driven back by the invading Soviets on 2 December 1939 who had crossed the
border at
After a barbecue supper and further night's camp at Lentuankosken Leirintä (Camping)
(see above right) (Photo
39 - Lakeside barbecue), the following
We should now continue our northward journey into Finnish Lapland, to learn more about the impact of the Winter War at the battlefields around Suomussalmi, and enjoy some excellent walking and see Palaeolithic rock-paintings in the Hossa Hiking Area; north to Kuusamo, we shall again camp in the remote Oulanka National Park (another of our favourites) to enjoy the walking trails with their unique wild orchids, and explore the eastern borderlands around Salla and Savukoski. But that's a story for the next edition. Next edition to be published shortly
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CAMPING IN FINLAND 2015 - Ilomantsi, Petkeljärvi and
Patvinsuo National Parks, Hattuvaara and the remote easternmost point, Ruunaa
Trekking Area, Lieksa and Kuhmo Winter War battlefields:
Eastwards to Ilomantsi:
the morning we left Joensuu, the sky was leadenly overcast and rain still
pouring; it always seems to rain whenever we come to Joensuu, and the city gave
no better impression than the last time we were here (See 
Ilomantsi's impressively helpful Tourist
Information Centre: we made first
for the TIC operated by the Karelia Expert Oy organisation, and were welcomed by
the same lady who had been so helpful in 2012; she had then organised for us
to be shown the Orthodox Church, and today arranged for the
Lutheran pastor to show us the Ilomantsi Lutheran Church with its famous
wall-paintings later in the week. She had an impressively stocked
file-library of brochures from all around Finland, and answered our questions
with an encyclopaedic knowledge of North Karelia; she confirmed we could still
camp at the Taistelijan Talo (Fighters' House) at Hattuvaara but added that the
village's little shop had now closed; the former shop-keeper now managed Taistelijan Talo. We also discussed with her our on-going travels and she warned that Route 522 north of Hattuvaara, despite
being designated the Via Karelia, was now in a badly damaged state.
Bardic Village of Parppeinvaara:
the so-called Bardic Village of Parppeinvaara, a skansen of
rustic wooden buildings set on a hillside just outside Ilomantsi, is intended to
preserve some of Karelia's cultural heritage, particularly the oral tradition of bardic singing accompanied by the zither-like stringed instrument, the
kantele.
These epic song-poem recitations had inspired Elias Lönnrot's compilation of the
Finnish epic Kalevala from his journeying around remote rural Karelia in
the early 19th century collecting such bardic folk-songs (
the Karelian folk-songs
to the accompaniment of her kantele playing (
The former iron mining village of Möhkö:
the following morning, with a brisk wind keeping the clouds moving and bringing alternating showers and sunny spells, we continued eastwards through
the lonely forests passing several 1939~44 war memorials. After crossing a wider channel
of Nuorajärvi, a further 4 kms brought us to the Koitajoki river bridge and
Möhkö, Finland's easternmost village. A peaceful place now, in the late 19th century it was a major industrial
centre of iron production. Möhkö iron smelting
works (Möhkön Ruukki), and the village that had grown up around it, was built in the 1830s in this forested wilderness by the Möhkönkoski rapids
to smelt and refine lake iron ore. Lake iron occurs when iron compounds leached
from the bed rock precipitate on grains of sand on the beds of shallow lakes to
form granules or coin-shaped nodules of ore pellets. Industrial scale smelting
developed in this remote location at Möhkö because of its proximity to rich
sources of lake iron ore, ready supplies of timber for burning as charcoal to
fire the smelting furnaces, water routes for transporting both ore and
smelted pig-iron, and
fast-flowing rapids for driving water wheels to power
furnace bellows. Möhkö developed during the 19th century as the largest
ironworks in Finland employing some 2,000 workers. The ironworks closed in 1908
when Nobel's invention of dynamite made mined iron ore more readily available
and lake iron became uneconomic. During the 20th century logging and
timber-rafting from the forests around the village became Möhkö's main source of
employment; timber trucks still drive through the village. During the 1939~44
Winter and Continuation Wars, the Soviets occupied Möhkö and the River Koitajoki
became the Ilomantsi main front line. The decisive battle of Ilomantsi in August
1944 was fought along the line of the forest road at Möhkö when 2 Soviet
divisions attempted to break through along the road. The narrow line of the
Soviet advance was broken up by the Finnish 21st Division using the well tried
and tested Motti tactics, of which more later. Separated sections of the
Soviet line were encircled and harassed by Finnish guerrilla attacks, and the
Soviets were forced to withdraw with over 2,000 casualties. The Finnish victory
at
Ilomantsi in August 1944 halted the Soviet advance, but in the subsequent
peace treaty of September 1944, the territorial losses of 1940 were made permanent diminishing, the Ilomantsi municipality area by a third. As a result,
the Russia border now lies just 2kms beyond Möhkö.
Petkeljärvi National Park:
back across the Koitajoki river, we turned off onto the 6kms of dirt road which
led through the pine forests, across narrow glacial esker-ridges and around
lakes to the 
A day in camp and camp-fire at Petkeljärvi
National Park: it was a chill night considering that Midsummer was
only a few days away, and the following morning the air was still cool with a
forecast day of gusting wind, showers and sunny spells. For a remote national
park campsite, facilities at Petkeljärvi are second to none: the WC/showers are
modern and clean, with a drying room for drying kit after a wet day out, and
the kitchen/wash-ups are thoughtfully laid out with 4 individual kitchenettes
each with dining table, ideal for tent campers in bad weather. After a
productive day in camp catching up with housekeeping and web editing, we put to
full use the site's other excellent facility, a covered camp-fire hearth.
Carrying our supper materials over to the camp-fire hut, we gathered birch-bark
kindling and logs from the log-store and soon had a fire going in the grate for
grilling our sausages over the glowing embers (see left). After eating, with the stoked
up fire again roaring in the chimney, we sat around the camp-fire enjoying the
peace of the evening (
The esker-ridge paths of Petkeljärvi National Park:
the following morning we woke to warming sun with yesterday's wind now dropped.
We kitted up for our day's walking on the esker-ridges of the Petkeljärvi National
Park, the most essential items of equipment in our day sacs being our midge-nets. The maps printed from the Metsähallitus cartographic web site
proved a real boon clearly showing both footpaths, contours and topographical
features (
From here we turned off southwards
onto the Korkeasärkkä esker path, which soon began to gain height up onto the
narrowing ridge, covered with bright green-leafed Bilberry, spiky Crowberry, and
leathery-leafed Lingonberry, and peppered with white Labrador-tea flowers.
with unnerving steepness some 30m on both sides. This
section of the ridge showed preserved trenches and machine gun nests from the
defensive line established by the Finns at Petkeljärvi at the outbreak of the
Winter War in November 1939 to stall the Soviet advance towards Ilomantsi. The
path clung precariously along the sloping side of the esker just below the ridge-crest with the land falling steeply down to Valkiajärvi way below, and at
the far end descended towards a stagnant bay enclosed by the forking end of this
section of the ridge. All during the esker walk, the monotonous call of a distant
cuckoo had resounded across the waters but disappointingly nothing was heard
this year of Petkeljärvi's emblematic Black Throated Diver; we had hoped to hear
again its plaintive wailing call echoing across the lake. The path continued onto the left hand fork
as the esker's low tail tapered down to its ultimate tip where the ground was
covered with bushes of Bog Bilberry with its distinctive pink, white-fringed
bell-shaped flowers (
With cloud now gathering, we returned along the Korkeasärkkä
high-sided esker-ridge with our midge-nets pulled down, back to the paths junction for the start of the
3,5km Harju-polku (Esker Path) circular walk (
2012 that we had encountered Bog
Rosemary for the very first time. And the plants were here, to be greeted like
old friends, and this time with our longer length lens we could photograph them
without having to lean gingerly over the board-walk's edge with risk of toppling
into the marsh. Steeply up onto the hillock on the far side, the path passed an
even deeper example of kettle-hole and continued through dense forest, shelving
around high above Ruunulampi to reach the junction with the Taitajantaival
long-distance path which would lead us back to the campsite. The path crossed a
now forested area of what had once been the flat delta of residual sandy moraine
spread out from the retreating glacier; we rounded the head of what was now an
elongated marshy depression extending down towards Savulampi, but once had been the
course of a fast-flowing river of melt-water coursing from the retreating
glacier's tail to erode the valley in the moraine delta. The whole day around Petkeljärvi
was like walking the pages of a geology text book, witnessing at close hand such
perfect examples of post-glacial topography. The on-going path wound
every-which-way through the pine and birch forest eventually dropping down to
our start-point by Kokkolahti from where it was a short walk around the head of
the lake back to the campsite. 
Ilomantsi Lutheran Church
and its wall
paintings - the 'Church of a
Hundred Angels':
the following morning was heavily overcast and humid, perfect weather for midges,
and they were about in swarms. Today we returned along the forest track towards Ilomantsi for our appointment with the Lutheran Pastor to see the Church
renowned for its Hundred Angels wall paintings. The Swedes had colonised the remote
wilds of Karelia in the early 17th century and the first Lutheran church was
built at Ilomantsi in 1653 in an attempt to convert the local Karelian
population from their Russian Orthodox faith. The present wooden Lutheran church
was built here in the early 19th century replacing earlier predecessor
churches which had burnt down struck by lightning. Quite out of keeping with the
normal dour restrictions of Protestant Lutheran traditions, with their starkly
plain and
unadorned churches untainted by any trace of images or idolatry, the
huge cruciform interior of Ilomantsi Lutheran Church is decorated with brightly
coloured wall paintings by Samuel Elmgren in 1830~32 (see left). The painting portraying images from Lutheran
doctrine were intended to educate illiterate Karelian peasants in the ways of the Western faith, at the same time competing for
congregation numbers with the iconic imagery of the nearby Orthodox Church. 
planet
Earth, all of which he had just completed in his 6 days of work. Superimposed
over the painting was the inscription in Finnish Alussa jumala Loi Taivaanja
Maan (In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth) (
paintings, almost as secondary accompaniment to the main themes, were
disembodied winged heads of angels (see left); the numbers of these had given the church
the tourist literature moniker of 'Church of the 100 Angels'. Unlike Orthodox
icons or Catholic Madonnas which have doctrinal symbolism for believers, these
paintings had been intended as instructional teaching material for illiterate
peasants in Lutheran articles of faith. And unlike other decorated Lutheran
churches where elaborate wall paintings dated from pre-Reformation
Catholic times, and had been painted over by the Lutherans at the Reformation, to be
restored in the 20th century, the remarkable thing here at Ilomantsi was that
the paintings had been created in the 19th century at the height of Lutheran
bigotry almost to outdo the rival artistic attraction of Orthodox iconography.
Given the Lutheran tradition for lack of adornment, we discussed with the Pastor
the significance of these startlingly bizarre paintings, and thanked him
profusely for the time he had given us and for the frank and interesting
discussion.
battalion of lightly armed,
ill-trained Finnish troops faced the initial wave of massed Soviet forces by the
former Kallioniemi ferry crossing; one wave of the Soviet invasion tasked with
reaching Joensuu was stalled here, the other along the Ilomantsi road at Möhkö.
We continued northwards, the road crossing between islets over a broad area of
marshy fens. A further 20kms brought us to the outskirts of Hattuvaara, another
contender for the title of Finland's most easterly village, and pulled into the
parking area of Taistelijan Talo (Fighters' House). The distinctive grey wooden
building with its small WW2 museum and restaurant was originally intended as a
memorial to those who had defended Finland against Soviet aggression in 1939~44; we had camped here for a couple of nights in 2012. Today we were greeted by
the charmingly welcoming and jovial lady who had previously kept the now closed
village shop (kylä kauppa in Finnish) in Hattuvaara and now managed the
Fighters' House. Yes we were welcome to camp by the power supplies
in the parking area at €10/night, but the WCs/showers in the basement WW2 museum
would be locked when the restaurant closed at 5-00pm and all day tomorrow,
Midsummer Day. Could you not leave it open for us? Hmm ... uncertainty.
Eventually her reluctance yielded, and she agreed to lend us the key; but be
sure to lock up and return it on Sunday, she said with a smile. Having paid for
our 2 nights' stay, we gladly settled in (
Midsummer Day at Finland's remote easternmost Point:
the reason for our stay at Hattuvaara was to re-visit Finland's and
mainland EU's easternmost point, 19 kms along a lonely gravelled lane through
the forests leading to the Finnish~Russian border; until recently a
permit was needed from the border guards' post in Hattuvaara to travel out to this point in
the patrolled border zone. The following morning opposite the now closed Hattuvaara shop we turned into the lane
with our sat-nav set at N 62.90934 E 31.58139, to begin the
drive out through the forested wilderness to
reach the Easternmost point (Itäisin
Piste in Finnish). The weather remained overcast making the forest seem even
more dreary, and we progressed at a steady 30 kph as the gravelled lane became
stonier and rougher
(
south at Möhkö;
in Eastern Finland's wilderness landscape, with its ubiquitous patchwork of
lakes and interconnecting network of water-courses, the water flow's direction was unpredictably difficult to follow
even on a map. The gravelled lane became even rougher, undulating over
glacial ridges, and at a turning 3 kms from the end-point we passed the former
border zone barrier now, cast aside in the undergrowth with border zone permits
no longer required out here. 1 km from the lane's end, we began to see the
yellow-topped posts marking the permitted line of the border-zone with 'Stop'
signs forbidding access beyond the line without permission (
But today it was the wealth of wild flora that
attracted priority of photographic attention: large clumps of Labrador-tea in
full bloom flourished on the moist ground around the lake shore (see below left), and by the
water's edge at the border platform Bog Rosemary with its beautiful clusters of
delicate pink globular flowers, Bog Bilberry with just an occasional remaining
flower, and a new plant for us, Leatherleaf with its elongated leaves and rows
of pendant, tiny white bell-shaped flowers unfortunately mostly over. We were
soon down on hands and knees among the lakeside undergrowth photographing the
flora and, despite our midge-nets, attracting swarms of midges. Back up the
trackway, we
spent more midge-infested time photographing banks of Lingonberry
with tight clusters of bud and early flowers still showing a deep pink colour
(see right),
and a low mound covered with masses of flowering May Lily. This area was a
paradise garden of floral photographic opportunity, but the midges were also
having a field day feasting on our blood: with heads down into the undergrowth
concentrating on photography, we were sitting ducks and were both badly bitten.
We had been fortunate to have this remote spot at Lake Virmajärvi to ourselves,
sharing the peace and isolation only with a distant cuckoo calling across the
waters. The drive back along the rough gravel lane to Hattuvaara was taken
steadily, but there was no further trace of bears.
procession. With the midges now worse than even, we settled back in for our
second night at the Fighters' House. The following morning a lady from the
village brought round sets of equipment for a traditional Karelian village game
played on a gravel pitch in the Fighters' House parking area. In the game of
Kyykkä or Karelian Skittles, each team has 40 100mm high wooden cylinders which
are stacked in pairs around the marked out squares of the gravel playing-pitch;
the game's objective is to knock the opponents' skittles out of the playing
square by throwing heavy 850mm long wooden sticks. We stood chatting with the
lady about the game and about life in Hattuvaara village: only 80 mainly older
people still live in the village, the younger ones now having moved away to
school and college or in search of work. With the former shop now closed, the
Fighters' House had clearly taken over as the village social centre, and this
morning several locals had gathered here for coffee and chat as the jovial lady
arrived to open up the restaurant; we thanked her for her hospitality and waved
farewell as we departed the Taistelijan Talo after our memorable stay.
Recycling in Finland:
before we could move on northwards, we had to shop for provisions for our stay
in the remote Patvinsuo National Park after the Midsummer supermarket closure.
So back the 38kms through the forests to Ilomantsi, where to our relief the
S-Market was open on the Sunday morning, and in fact doing a busy trade, not the
least with customers queuing with bag-loads of with empty cans and bottles at
the deposit-returns machine in the foyer. Being a highly recycling-conscious
society, the Nordic countries charge a small deposit on drinks cans and bottles,
and you retrieve your deposits using posting-machines in supermarket foyers.
With Finland being dual language, beer cans carry details of the deposit, the
word for which in Finnish is pantti and in Swedish pant, giving
much opportunity
for puerile ribaldry about pantti-pants; we carry our
empty return bottles and cans to the pants-machine in a pants-bag,
and if cans happen to have fallen in the mud, they are dirty-pants, and
so ad nauseam ... ! You regularly see vagrants rummaging through litter bins for
empty cans or bottles to retrieve the few pence of deposits. This morning, after
the Midsummer holiday of party-drinking, the pants-machine was busy and we
queued along with Finns with our pants-bag, before re-stocking with provisions
in the supermarket and taking our pants-ticket for reimbursement at the
check-out. All part of daily living in Finland!
This was indeed a lonely wilderness road, and for the next 30 kms
we passed scarcely one other vehicle
(
asphalt, equally treacherous loosely gravelled cost-conscious patching,
all to be steered around to avoid damage to tyres and suspension. With Sheila on
pot-hole watch, we cautiously wove a way at 20 kph through the damaged road surface for the
next 15 kms. Then 5 kms before the key road junction at Kitsi, the asphalted
surface began again, not just renewed but fully lined, and we were able to pick
up speed again. We had mapped the coordinates for all the key junctions on the
approach roads to the remote Patvinsuo National Park, and now set the sat-nav
for the first of these 14kms along Route 5202; although a minor back-lane, this
was better asphalted than the entire drive north from Hattuvaara, and we soon
reached the turn-off onto the rough gravelled track leading to Patvinsuo
Information Centre at Lake Suomunjärvi. The warden was more than happy for us to
camp at the grassy clearing here, and we settled in by a patch of sweet-smelling Kielo (Lily of the Valley) under the birch trees amid swarming midges and
black-fly
(
Patvinsuo National Park - Mäntypolku
Nature Trail: the plan for
our day in 
produced today's
floral highlight: growing on both sides of the board-walk amid the sphagnum were
flourishing patches of Cloudberry, the first seen this year. Some male flowers
still had full white petals and pollen-bearing stamens (see right), others just had the pink
sepals remaining; but most significantly female Cloudberry plants, which had
flowered earlier
and had lost their petals after being fertilised, now bore the
early developing fruit which was just visible in the top gap of the green
enclosing sepals (see left). The Cloudberries now monopolised our
photographic attention, and having to lift our midge-nets, the midges had a
feast on exposed necks and faces! After this Cloudberry photographic field day,
the return loop through the pine forest was something of an anticlimax, as we
plodded endlessly through the featureless woodland. After passing a
reconstructed charcoal-burning stack, the path dropped down to cross marshy
ground on board-walks, around the shore of Sihvonlampi,
and eventually emerging back
at the Suomu Information Hut clearing.
Ruunaa
Trekking Area: at Pankakoski we turned off through desolate forested landscape across the wide Ruunaa
watercourses for our stay in the 
Canoeists at the Neitikoski Rapids:
after suffering so badly with midge bites at Patvinsuo, this morning we doused
arms, neck and forehead with DEET, as well as ensuring we had packed midge-nets
in our day sacs. But before setting off for today's venture across wild country
to the Marinkangas Hut, we walked down to see the Neitikoski Rapids just below
Ruunaa campsite where the distant noise of the rapids was just audible at the
camping area. We followed tracks downhill to board-walks which linked across a
chain of islets where fast-flowing side-channels of the main river surged around
the feet of birch trees under the wooden bridges. Fishermen were
enthusiastically casting from the wooden platforms but no one seemed to be
catching anything. We followed the board-walk around to its furthest point,
which looked out across to where the main
river flowed past at a formidable
rate, erupting into the turmoil of the Neitikoski Rapids with the water boiling
up into a swelling, churning mass. We had timed it well: canoeists in their
short, stubby rapids kayaks were in turn paddling into the raging white-water at
the most turbulent heart of the rapids (see left and right). The surging water hurled the tiny boats
around as the canoeists fought against the river's foaming current to hold an
upright position in this maelstrom, skilfully riding the crest of the churning
white-water; it was an unbelievably impressive performance
(
A walk to Marinkangas via the Paasikoski and Haapavitja Rapids and the
Karsikkosuo marshlands
(
Karhunpolku long-distance path out over some of Ruunaa's
wilderness marshland terrain to the Marinkangas Hut on the distant shore of Lake Ruunaanjärvi. A 3 km drive along the gravelled forest road brought us to its end
at a parking area for the start of the path. The path dropped down through the
pine forest with its lush ground-cover of Bilberry already showing some green,
unripe berries. A board-walk led across a short stretch of marsh where the moist
sphagnum supported flourishing patches of Cloudberry
(
Crossing the bridge, we followed the start of the Karhunpolku
long-distance path which ran for 45 kms ultimately to Patvinsuo passing through
the most isolated wilderness terrain, the first section of which we were to
sample today. The first 300m as far as a lean-to shelter was densely forested
with a
lush ground-cover. The path now turned sharply eastwards through dark
pine woods, the tall trees more scattered. Amid the Bilberry ground-cover here
there was more Lingonberry in attractive white flower. Emerging from the far
side of the woods, the path dropped down to cross the wide area of waterlogged
and utterly barren sphagnum of the Karsikkosuo marshland (see right). Care was needed on the
narrow board-walk, since any false step would mean a soaking, and who knows how
deep the sodden marshland was, too sterile to support any other plant life but
the sphagnum. In today's dreary light, this was indeed an utterly barren
wilderness. Thankfully reaching the dry land of a low hillock on the far side,
the path now entered a further area of open pine woods from where the
distinctive 'kettle's boiling' crescendo call of a Curlew could be heard across
the barren marshland. Through the woods the path thankfully was clearly
way-marked and dropped down to a further area of marshland where a sign board
marked the boundary between the Ruunaan Retkeilyalue (Trekking Area) and broader
area of the Ruunaan Luonnonsuojelualue (Protected Nature Reserve) which
stretched away into utterly desolate wilderness towards the Russian border. We
started off over the board-walk which crossed the marshland, here less wet and
barren and on raised mounds of drier sphagnum supporting a wealth of bogland
plants. Here at last we found the female Cloudberry plants, gathered as if in
socialising clusters. The pollination had clearly been successful since these
plants each had an upright head of a ripening fruit enclosed within the
protecting calyx case
(
easily have been missed, and we were soon sprawled
out on the board-walk to photograph them
(
Safely across this section of board-walk, the path
climbed into further pine forest with banks of lovely pink Lingonberry flowers.
Reaching higher ground, we could now see through the dark woodland the distant
waters of Ruunaanjärvi. The way-marked Karhunpolku path threaded its way the forest reaching a junction where an indistinct sign pointed down to the
Marinkangas hut-shelter on the shores of the lake. The plaintive 2-note call of
the Curlew echoed through the woods from across the marshland. We dropped down
to the lakeside to reach Marinkangas, our goal for today; beyond here across the
lake, the empty wilderness of the Ruunaan Nature Reserve stretched away into the
eastwards distance towards the Russian border, and the Karhunpolku long-distance
path continued southwards. We refilled our water flask and began our long return
walk across the marshland board-walks and through the forest where midge-net
protection was more essential than ever
(
The Siikakoski Nature Walk:
the following morning before moving out for day at Siikakoski Rapids, we again
walked down to Neitikoski Rapids just below the campsite to see if any other
canoeists were riding the rapids today. A lone 'paddler' was out battling with
the torrent in the vortex of the Neitikoski maelstrom, in the most skilful
manner holding her position at the intake of the rapids in seemingly perfect
control without being sucked down into the maw of raging waters. It was a true
master class of elite white-water canoeing technique, holding her position
against the rapids' powerful current, then plunging and twisting into the
seething morass of water but seemingly in perfect control (
After this second episode of canoe watching, we
drove from the campsite back along to the Ruunaa road and turned off at the
Naarajärvi bridge along the 10kms of lane to the Siikakoski parking area. With
having to pull back our midge-nets for close-up flora photography, we again
smeared heads and necks with DEET and set off on the signposted path, meandering
through pine and birch woodland parallel with the fast-flowing Lieksanjoki river
(see right) (
We at last reached the bridge with its views along
the Siikakoski rapids of the Lieksanjoki river (
in 2012. We were not disappointed: with their trailing stems and tiny
leaves, we found some flowers but mostly the Cranberry was still in bud. We
spent a back-achingly wearying time crouched low on the board-walk trying the
photograph the tiny Cranberry flowers which were frustratingly difficult to get
into sharp focus. But our reward was another real gem: almost hidden among the
sphagnum were tiny plants of insectivorous Round-leafed Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia),
the globules of sticky insect-attracting liquid clearly visible at the tips of
leaf hairs (
as the Finns struggled to resist the invasion of their
homeland. We pressed on beyond Nurmijärvi across a short causeway spanning
lakes. Rather than the expected start of 60 kms of unsurfaced road through
forested wilderness, the tarmac not only continued but the road seemed
unexpectedly newly constructed, well-surfaced and lined. But how long would it
last? The newly upgraded asphalt ribbon of road stretched away across rolling, forested hills
which extended away to the horizon in a wilderness of trees utterly devoid of
any human presence. The map apparently showed named villages along
the length of Route 524 but we passed no trace of habitation. The clouds thinned
and sky brightened, making this wilderness panorama seem slightly less
unnerving. We pressed on more optimistic now as the remaining kilometres to the
Route 75 junction slowly ticked down - 60, 55, 50; if the newly asphalted road
suddenly ended, 50 kilometres of remaining dirt road seemed less formidable. But
no, the ribbon of tarmac stretching across this forested wilderness continued;
30 kilometres left to the junction. And we suddenly noticed that the sat-nav's
time estimate for the remaining journey had reduced to what might have been
expected for normal tarmaced roads. Perhaps therefore we had now passed the
middle section formerly unsurfaced, gravelled road, and the sat-nav's map now
showed tarmac all the way to the Route 75 junction. The uncertainty had passed,
and in brighter light we could now relax and enjoy the desolation of this
forested wilderness.
We also passed the turning into the Saunajärvi road, one of the key Soviet
invasion routes of November 1939 which we planned to explore while at Kuhmo;
here at least the lane was wide and tarmaced, and at this stage we took note of
the turning's coordinates in readiness for our Kuhmo Front day when we hoped to
learn more about Motti tactics during our stay at Kuhmo. Finally reaching
the Route 75 junction, having enjoyed 60 kms of newly asphalted road all the way
from Nurmijärvi across the deserted forested wilderness, we turned towards the
southern outskirts of Kuhmo. Through the centre of the town and around the far side of the
bypass, we reached the
The 1939~40 Winter War battlefields of the Kuhmo Front: our plan for
today was to explore the key locations of the battlefields and memorials along
the two roads leading in from the Russian border towards Kuhmo which were the
main routes of the November 1939 Soviet invasion at the start of the Winter War.
In late 1939, with events in Europe becoming increasingly unstable and USSR's
stance towards Finland more belligerent, the Finns began to fortify their
eastern border and to train their reservists. On 30 November, a division of the
Red Army crossed the Finnish border, but given the impenetrable forested
terrain, the only routes for the Soviet attack were along the valleys of Saunajärvi and Hukkajärvi. The Soviet
plan was for their columns of troops and armour to advance along the two valley
roads, capture Kuhmo and continue rapidly across the width of Finland to the
Bothnian coast, taking Kaajani and Oulu and cutting the country into two at its
narrowest point. But things went very differently: although vastly outmanned and
without the tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft that the Soviets had mustered in
great force, and lacking anti-tank guns to halt the Soviet columns of tanks, the
Finns were defending their homeland; they knew the forested terrain and how best
to use it to advantage, and were used to operating in severe winter conditions.
forested
winter terrain of eastern Finland was against them: troops and
armour were compelled to advance slowly along the two narrow forest roads, and
the Finns used this to advantage in their counter-attacks, developing and
exploiting the so-called Motti tactics. The Finnish word Motti
literally means a cubic metre measure of stacked timber left in the forest to be
gathered later as fire-wood. The Finns used the term as military slang for an
encircled detachment of enemy troops and tanks, trapped and isolated in
bite-sized units to be dealt with at will later; hence such trapped units were
called Mottis. The tactic was particularly effective against mechanised
units of the invading Red Army which, because of the impenetrable forest and
bog, were restricted to advance along the narrow forest roads with no way other
than forward or backward; once committed, the Soviet troops and tanks
effectively were trapped, and the slow pace of advance inevitably meant columns
becoming divided into isolated pockets. Unlike the enemy mechanised columns, the
Finnish troops could move quickly through the snow covered forests on skis,
well-equipped and camouflaged for winter survival; they knew the terrain and
were well-motivated in defending their homeland (the Finnish word sisu
meaning sheer guts became another byword). By felling trees, the
slow-moving Soviet columns were split into smaller, weakened pockets (Mottis)
and the light, mobile Finnish ski-troops could strike at will from within the
forest, concentrating forces on all sides and overwhelm much larger units
of encircled, trapped armoured forces. If the encircled enemy unit was too
strong, or if attacking would entail unacceptable cost of life, the trapped
Motti could be left to stew until supplies of food, fuel and ammunition ran
low, and the weakened enemy eliminated.
with the farming family's 13 year old son,
and the family taken as POWs into Russia. There was no time to evacuate farm
animals which had to be shot, and houses and farms destroyed to deny use by the
enemy. 8,250 people in total were evacuated form Kuhmo and district of which 127
were killed; they were moved westwards to Kaajani, Oulu and Western Bothnia for
the war's duration. Kuhmo was bombed and shelled 48 times, making it the 5th most
bomb damaged locality in Finland with 327 buildings destroyed. A cease-fire was
declared on 13 March 1940 and peace confirmed by the Treaty of Moscow. The war
had lasted 105 days, and in the Kuhmo area had resulted in zero territorial
gains for USSR: the border remained as it had been for 400 years. On the Kuhmo
Front, the Soviets lost more than 10,500 killed compared with Finnish losses of
1,348, in addition to so many homes and farms destroyed and civilian life utterly
disrupted. After the Red Army withdrew back across the border, Finnish troops
began clearing the battlefields so that civilians could return home. The
Soviets had buried some of their dead, but when the winter's snow began to melt,
unburied corpses started to emerge. The Finns buried over 10,000 Soviet dead in
mass graves but the true figure of Russian losses is not known. Clearance of
Battle zones of weapons, ammunition, vehicles and horse corpses continued. The
first evacuees returned to Kuhmo in April~May but only in late summer were they
allowed to return to the eastern area to rebuild destroyed homes and farms, too
late in year to plant crops. Farms that had lost livestock were compensated with
replacement cattle evacuated from South Karelian territory seized by the
Soviets. Food supplies were short and good-will packages were sent from Sweden
and Finnish émigrés in USA. The Swedes also contributed prefabricated wooden
houses to help replace homes lost along the Saunajärvi road. Military funerals
were held in April and war dead were buried in mass graves in Kuhmo. 400 Soviets
soldiers were captured in the Motti battles and were held as POWs and returned
to USSR in April 1940.
The Saunajärvi road 1939~40 invasion route and
its memorials: 5 kms along Route 524, we reached the turning
into the fateful Saunajärvi road which ran from here some 30 kms to the Russian
border. We had paused here on our drive over from Lieksa and established that,
at least for the early part of the road, it was asphalted. 5 kms further a
memorial stone stood by the roadside commemorating the Finnish soldiers from
Taivalkoski who were killed on the Kuhmo Front. This area around the Klemeti farm
was the scene of 2 Mottis which remained trapped for the duration of the
war despite Finnish attempts to capture them. A little further we reached
Luvelahti where in January 1940, with the invasion stalled, the Soviets set up
their divisional HQ on the shore of Lake Saunajärvi . The battles here claimed
many lives on both sides and split the Soviet forces into 3 Mottis, 2
of which were captured after the Finns brought heavy artillery to bear. Just off
the road a memorial stood to the Soviet troops killed in these encirclement
battles; ornate wreathes had recently been laid at the monument. A little further
we reached the area of Kannas and Niska where a large Motti of Soviet
troops was isolated and trapped when the Finns captured
the section of road just
east of the Kannas farm; despite fierce fighting, the Motti remained
uncaptured until the war's end. Nearby a section of trenches and dugout has been
restored
(
where the
war's first casualties had occurred; the asphalted road then ended, but we
decided to venture ahead on the smoothly gravelled surface to see how far the
road extended and whether we could get as far as the Russian border. Tentatively
we edged forward for another 5 kms before the road ended at a large Border Guard
post and barrier with warning sign Pääsy ilman lupaa kielletty -
unmistakably clear in any language - Access without permission
prohibited (
Hukkajärvi. We continued as far as we could to where the road ended
some distance from the border with nothing now to be seen. There was nothing for
it but to return the 30 kms westwards along the Hukkajärvi road to the memorial
at Tyrävaara farm; this was the furthest westward point that the Soviets on the
northern invading route had reached before being halted and driven back, forced
to retreat eastwards by the Finnish Christmas Eve counter-offensive and
obliterated in the decisive battle at Kiekinniemi on 28 December 1939.
morning was bright with a brisk
breeze to keep away the midges so that for the first time in weeks we were able
to sit out for breakfast
(
