S/S Turso on historic honorary cruise in St. Petersburg

Vessel delivered to the Soviet Union as part of war reparations returned as an invited guest to the St. Petersburg anniversary celebrations

SS Turso

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By Anneli Ahonen in St. Petersburg
     
      A combined whistle-blast from Finnish steamships is carrying across the water on the Neva River.
      The small steam whistle of the S/S Enso makes a shrill sound, while the lower growl of S/S Turso resonates in the bass register.
      A total of 14 Finnish steamships had been invited to celebrate the 308th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg. Among the honorary guests, there was one particularly special ship: the S/S Turso, one of the 104 vessels handed over to the Soviet Union in 1945 as part of the massive war reparations paid by Finland. She is the only one of her kind left afloat.
     
Finnish steam engine aficionados bought the vessel back in 2004, starting a challenging technical reconstruction project in order to restore the dilapidated ship as diligently as possible to its former glories.
      The restored S/S Turso is now sailing down the Neva River through St. Petersburg for the first time as an honoured guest.
      How do you feel now, Pekka Snellman?
      ”Everyone is overcome with nostalgia. I could never have imagined that I would sail on a steamboat on Lake Saimaa, let alone in St. Petersburg”, says Pekka Snellman, the Chairman of the Harbour Ice Breaker S/S Turso Association.
      Like Snellman, even retired Capt. Andrei Araratov was deeply moved by his visit to S/S Turso on Friday.
      For 22 years, Araratov was the skipper of the S/S Turso in Russia.
      ”The vessel has been magnificently restored; everything has been polished down to the tiniest detail”, Araratov commented over the phone.
     
In Russia, the S/S Turso used to break ice that was dammed up in the Neva River in the wintertime. In the summer months, the steamship used to escort ships at the port as a harbour tug.
      At one point, the S/S Turso even served as an oil-spill cleanup vessel.
     
The festival day begins under cloudy and rainy skies, but when the parade of ships starts, the sun makes an appearance.
      Black smoke is billowing from the funnel of the coal-powered S/S Turso as the vessel leads the parade from the Peter and Paul Fortress towards the Winter Palace.
      Someone is playing the archetypally Finnish Kulkurin valssi (”Vagabond’s Waltz”) on an accordion on the deck. Down in the engine room, stoker Pasi Alhainen’s forehead glistens with sweat as he throws another shovelful of coal into the boilers.
      Four stokers have managed to pull through the entire voyage from Helsinki via Vyborg and Primorsk to St. Petersburg.
      It is time to go topside for refreshment.
      ”Toot”, whistles Turso, while drops of water dribbling from the steam whistle are spraying on people gathered on the deck.
     
In St. Petersburg, the city’s anniversary is celebrated with grandiose ceremonies, but the steamships are an absolute crowd-puller.
      Waving excitedly, St. Petersburg residents have thronged the banks of the river.
      ”I never participate in the anniversary ceremonies of the city. I just came to see the steamboats sail past”, says pensioner Jevgenija, who is standing amid the crowd.
      Now the vessels should just get themselves back to Finland.
      The 55 tonnes of coal which had been loaded up for the Turso's trip were fast running out, and more would have to be be bought in Russia.
     
Saint Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland in 1703.
      In addition to numerous bridges, the city was served by a dense network of shipping lines.
      The good prospects of the metropolis, which had a population of over a million already at the beginning of the 20th century, caught even the eyes of the Finland Steamship Company, which soon captured the lines to Kronstadt and Peterhof, setting up its own shipyard on Vasilyevsky Island.
      The golden age of Finnish steamships continued until the Russian Revolution in 1917.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.5.2011


See also:
  BACKGROUND: War reparations proved beneficial for Finnish economic development (3.9.2002)
  More pictures of the flotilla in St. Petersburg (captions in Finnish; click on the image and then on the arrows at the right of the pop-up pictures: there are six images in all)

Links:
  Harbour Icebreaker SS Turso

ANNELI AHONEN / Helsingin Sanomat