Thursday 1st Oct

To complete our blog about the Kalevala-week seen from our point of view, we continue our story with the Winter War in Suomussalmi.
We learned a lot indeed! Though we knew about the Talvisota before and pupils have it in their history curriculum, we experienced the hard and heroic 105 days here personally. The stories told by Lassi With about how people had to leave their homes, how the village had been burned down, the places of bloody battles shown us, the memorials and museums, the  old  Raatte road and at the end of the trip the Raatten portti museum and the memorial for 16 000 soldiers and 105 bells in the middle of the valley made us think deeper about the senseless evil of war and feel the previous hard times with our skin.

We also visited the Vartiomuseo - the only remained pre-war border guard post in Finland, where we cold see the everyday routine of border guards.

Vartiomuseo

Raatten portti

Silent people - Hiljainen kansa



On our way back to Taivalkoski via Jokijärvi we stopped at one place of interest .
 The Silent people – almost a thousand characters made of turf heads and wood torsos clothed with people’s old clothes standing in an old field.  This work of art was designed by Reijo Kela. Twice a year the clothes are changed, so the place remains “alive”. One thing that’s fun: if you want to take some piece of clothing with you, you can do so, if you give some of yours in return!
As we already ran out of time, we didn´t change the clothes - not this time. But the view was mysterious in the twilight.

We spent our last evening and the farewell supper at the Herkko hotel together with our Finnish mates. Last gifts, last words- greetings and wishes - and the worst work of every trip  had to be done next - packing the stuff.

Friday 2nd Oct 
Tuula had the last cup of coffee with us at the Ruska hotel. And so we started our very long journey via Helsinki through Finland, back to the south, escaping the storm which we really managed to avoid. We were back at home about 3 am. But we had 2 days for relaxing and sleeping.

This is the end of the 1st part of our blog.
 The new posts are coming when we start with new project activities, reheasals  and other preparations for the meeting in April in Illuka.

Thanks to all kind people in Taivalkoski for the warm hosting!