Jääski Churchyard rings with Finnish hymns again

Anniversary of evacuation brings brought 600 Karelians to old home

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By Jaakko Pihlaja
     
      On the banks of the River Vuoksi there used to be a great church that fit 2000 people. Now all that is left in Jääksi, part of the area ceded by Finland to the Soviet Union at the end of the war, are some mossy ruins on a flowery meadow. A few gravestones and monuments put up a decade ago reveal that the place is the sacred burial ground of the people of Jääski.
     
The Karelians tread a fine line between laughter and tears. The past 60 years has not extinguished their attachment to their homeland.
      Onerva Louheranta from Valkeakoski is still moved even though she has already visited her childhood home region and that of her husband four times, and also shown her son where his roots lie. Now only memories remain, as well as beautiful scenery and the singing of the birds.
      “What would this place be like if it had stayed under Finnish rule?” says the woman who was forced to leave her home at age 14. Her eyes well up with tears as she is waits for the beginning of Jääski festival mass on the yard of the ravaged school building built in the style of Finnish functionalism. Equally bleak sights are found all around the village.
     
The break-up of the Soviet Union left the most modern school of its time a dilapidated ruin. Reino Paajanen from Elimäki went to confirmation classes and was confirmed in the building that also served as a church after the actual church had burned down in 1941. Everyone had to flee their homes before Midsummer.
      Erkki Linturia from Helsinki, whose father was the last district police superintendent, toured the town by taxi, showing his children his childhood neighbourhood. Old photographs show scenes of the village very different to the reality of today. One old house remains, somewhat altered by its present owner.
      The memories of the former inhabitants of the Enso region have faded. The old home district has become the home region and home country of a new generation of Russians.
      In his sermon the bishop Voitto Huotari said that he believes that there the people of Jääski no longer hold any grudges, but rather a sense of tolerance: “Nature is our mutual home,” he insists. “Homesickness is also a strength – it has brought the people of Karelia together.”
      Also the former Speaker of Parliament Riitta Uosukainen, who was born in Enso, spoke about what the area would be like, had it remained under Finnish control. “To me Enso is the Enso of long ago – memories. But even more than that it is the people of Enso,” said Uosukainen, who can see the smokestacks of the Enso factories from her home in Imatra.
     
The mass in the church grounds and the celebration at the Enso House of Culture was the first that the Jääski Foundation had held on the Russian side of the border. Fourteen buses and numerous cars waited at the border to get the 600 former inhabitants and their offspring to the mass and unique communion on time. The mass was taped and will be televised at Midsummer.
      Those taking part were rehearsing for the recording even as the audience was arriving.
      Kyösti Toivanen, the spokesman of the foundation, said that preparations for the festival had been going on for two years. The city of Svetogorsk gave its strong support for the event, but permission was needed from authorities in nearby Vyborg just a short time before the festival. It was granted after the foundation made a donation to the Vyborg militia (police). In return, patrols were sent to monitor traffic in the region.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 7.6.2004

More on this subject:
 A summer of nostalgia

JAAKKO PIHLAJA / Helsingin Sanomat