Finns found extensive damage after returning to Porkkala in spring of 1956

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By Antti Manninen
     
      The gate to Porkkala was opened exactly 50 years ago, on January 26th, 1956 at 15:00 hours in Kivenlahti on the border between Espoo and Kirkkonummi. At that time Finnish soldiers marched to the area that the Russians had leased from Finland, and which they gave back ahead of schedule. The following day, representatives of the Finnish and international press were allowed into Porkkala in a convoy of cars that stretched for several kilometres from Helsinki to Kirkkonummi.
      Ordinary civilians watched at the gate as the first Finns entered Porkkala. The residents' turn came later.
     
Ann-Mari Lindberg was a young woman of 20 when she first entered the Porkkala area with her future husband Tor Engberg on February 4th, 1956. Their curiosity had grown after the news bombshell had hit in September, according to which Porkkala would be given back.
      Engberg had seen already ahead of time that his farm, Stor-Kvis, had survived the Russian occupation intact, at least externally. He had looked at his home from the window of a train after December, when they were allowed to pass through Porkkala without shutters on the windows.
     
The shuttering on the outside of the windows of Finnish trains passing through the Porkkala area was called the "Porkkala tunnel", and was something of a tourist attraction for foreigners.
      Lindberg, a former resident of Kirkkonummi, and a farmer's wife, has written a book about her experiences after the end of the Soviet occupation of the area. It was the life of a pioneer, because of the changes that had taken place. Their house was still there; many others who returned found only the foundations left.
      Even today, Lindberg clearly remembers the "Russian smell" that hovered everywhere - a very particular sweetish stench. "And the ‘Russian blue', which seems to have been the only kind of paint that they used in Porkkala."
      Lindberg currently lives in Helsinki. During her visits to Kirkkonummi, she recalls the old memory of how even the weather in Porkkala seemed to have been left foggier by the Russians. "Perhaps it was because the fields had been overgrown by bushes, and the ditches were clogged, keeping the dampness in place."
      Before the wars, Porkkala was a rural area, where Swedish was the predominant language. There were prosperous mansions, and large farmhouses.
      Under the conditions of the peace agreement, the houses were to be left to the Soviet occupiers intact, with the keys in the doors. When the Porkkala evacuees returned 11 years later, their houses were in very bad shape. "The rooms were divided into small compartments, and closets had been used as toilets."
     
Those returning to Porkkala were astounded at Russian construction standards. New fireplaces were placed directly on wooden floors. New houses put up by the Russians did not have any kind of a stone foundation.
      The snow was very deep in the winter of 1956, and many Porkkala residents needed to use skis to visit their houses. "Only in the spring, when the snow had melted, was the full extent of the destruction revealed", Lindberg says.
      The weight of tanks and other military vehicles had pressed the fields, so that they were hard as rock. On the other hand, a tractor might suddenly plummet into a bunker. All kinds of junk was found in wells.
      "Parts of artillery shells still come out of our fields, because this was used as a target range", says Anders Engberg, the present owner of the Stor-Kvis farm. In the front yard of Stor-Kvis there is a ruined grain storage building, which has been preserved as a memorial of the Russian period in Porkkala.
      A few tail fins of artillery shells protrude from the rocks of the foundation. A child's crib made by the Russians is still in the attic of the building.
      "After the return of Porkkala we were in a great hurry to get rid of all traces of the Russians, and the sad memories", Lindberg says.
      Some traces still remain. The village of Jorvas has a large white industrial building, which was originally a Russian delousing bath.
     
At the Kirkkonummi cemetery, broken tombstones can still be seen as a reminder of the destruction. The Russians dismantled the whole interior and all religious symbols from the medieval church, which they used as a cinema.
      Lindberg recalls how residents of Porkkala were especially shocked and amazed at the desecration of the cemetery. Many of the missing tombstones were later found buried in the ground, and some of them had been broken.
      The monument to Senator Sebastian Gripenberg next to the wall of the church had been spared. One of the points of the six-pointed star is still missing; it had been clumsily broken off, so that the star might be more in keeping with Soviet tastes.
      The most extensive impact of the Porkkala military base built by the Russians were in the area of the Upinniemi garrison. The land was never restored to the original owners, because the Finnish state used its right of eminent domain to buy the land for the Finnish Defence Forces.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.1.2005  


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Return of Porkkala by Soviets 50 years ago had strings attached (25.1.2006)
  Sixty years ago: Parliament within range of Soviet guns (29.9.2004)
  Porkkala: A Finnish white spot (21.5.2000)

ANTTI MANNINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
antti.manninen@hs.fi