To be precise, a few decades ago there was no Äänislinna at all. There was only Petrozavodsk, Petroskoi, or "Zavodskoi", as it was also called Olonets Karelians – the former provincial capital city, the capital of the then "Gylling’s Kingdom", a cluttered and dull large Russian village. The street landscape included goats, as well as a Russian muzuk who competed with goats in the beard’s sloppiness. Although the “reins of management” of the city held in the hands of Finnish doctoral student and former associate professor at the University of Helsinki, Petroskoi was nevertheless a completely Russian settlement, despite the Finnish-language signs of offices and shops that flashed here and there.

"National Hero" Antikainen was not yet famous. Nothing was known about the "Tiltu"¹. Her colleague nicknamed "Male Tiltu", Armas Äikiä “Räikiä (Rattle)"² leaned to write beautiful poems for communist romantic weeklies published in Finland, and Petrozavodsk radio did not exist at all, except on paper. Associate Professor Edvard Gyllingillä was still in the favour of Moscow – at least officially, and the Communists – and all the others – at that time had not yet been shot only for the fact that they were Finns. In pubs a strong beer was offered for 35 cents of the bottle, and in the market, it was possible to buy even fish and eggs – after all, at that time there was the era of "NEP" and the sale of food was not a crime, punishable by the shooting…

The growing urban Finnish-speaking colony consisted then of two or three thousand emigrants and defectors, including women and infants, but, regardless of their small number, this small group played a significant role in the city life and the life of the “republic”. After all, the head of state himself, as already mentioned, was a Doctor of Philosophy from Finland, and several important positions of power were completely or at least partially in the hands of officials born in Finland. Even secretary of the regional committee of a mighty and all-powerful Communist Party bore the Finnish surname Järvinen³, and as an exception his assistant Komu was former teacher at the Finnish public school and a small landowner. Santeri Nuorteva has not yet died, he at that time was only recently released from prison, to where his short-lived diplomatic career in the service of Soviet power has brought him. He re-gained his popularity as a mighty and fat commissar, busying himself in Petrozavodsk, trying to consolidate his position, introducing himself as a greater Catholic than the Pope, that is, even more Russian than even the Russian russifiers of Karelia. Russification was at that time a constant reason for the arguments between the Finnish and Russian bigwigs there. Nuorteva was at that time the fattest man in Petrozavodsk and the only one who sometimes appeared at local evening parties in a tuxedo. In everyday life, he preferred to wear Russian military uniforms without insignia and to travel on official business by automobile which was a truly remarkable feature for that time.

There were other large top dogs. Forstén was Finnish-speaking commissar in the department of public education, his wife held an establishment with the killer name “Agitpropburo”. Mrs. Aino herself gladly spoke to the scientist about “pisology” and “petagogy”, but it did not matter much – after all, few people understood these words better than her. Subversive activity against Finland was headed by a certain native of Helsinki Söderlund, a quiet man. Strings have stretched from his quiet office, located near Karl Marx Street, far into the depths of Finland, reaching at the end illegal organizations and those legal that were established in our country to cover them.

The university was not yet there, but in the Finnish-language Pedagogical Seminary there were a couple of hundred Karelian and Finnish students, of which half a dozen teachers sincerely tried to educate the educators of the Karelian people in their native language. Heino Rautio, Finnish teacher at public school was a principal of this educational institution. His colleague Hannes Pulkkinen, an Esperantist, a pacifist and a sincere vegetarian, who even in the strongest hunger would not agree to eat even fish or eggs, not to mention the disgusting meat of animals, was his closest assistant.

Ivar Lassy, the son of the Caspian skipper and the Finnish Doctor of Philosophy, was the head “Sovpartshkola”. Eero Haapalainen became famous by writing “Worker-peasant alphabet” in which the letter “J” had an example: “Jos juon, niin juovun (if I drink, I am drunk)”. He, as well as the former Finnish trade union figure Herman Saxman, most often could be found in one of the city's pubs, on the walls of which there were usually two small posters: warning about the danger of typhus – "Do not drink unboiled water!", and under it – the announcement of the Petrozavodsk brewery – "Here a beer of the Karelian brewery is being sold."

"Red Karelia" was edited by someone called Virtanen⁴, and someone with the same surname competed as a poet with Lauri Letonmäki…

Almost in the center of the city there was a house, which was called nothing but the White House. No presidents of the republic live in it, as in the house of the same name in Washington. This building was a prison, and a countless number of Karelians, Finns and Russians waited for their fate in it.

The Finn who landed at it had time to remember what he knew about the earlier history of the city.

The city of Petrozavodsk was founded in the early 1700’s, when Peter I (Peter the Great), ordered to establish an ironwork plant in this area, which quickly grew into a significant rifle production by the standards of that time. Chronicles tell that Tsar Peter followed the development of the plant with great personal interest, and a beautiful two-story palace was built for him on the banks of the Lososinka River.

However, the first flourishing period of Äänislinna – or more accurately to say the Petrovsky Plant – was relatively short. Already in 1724, rifle production was transferred to the Karelian Isthmus, in Sestroretsk, and with it everything that made Petrozavodsk a busy city. However, a new boom began in 1763, when an ironworks plant was founded on the site of the former Petrovsky plant with the help of French capital.

In 1777, Petrozavodsk received rights of a city, after, in 1774 a large cannon and shell factory was founded by the will of Catherine II. In 1782, provincial administration was relocated there.

However, the development of the city slowed down in the 1800's and in the early 1900's. In 1908, the population of the city was 15,000 people and even by 1922-1924 it was only slightly larger. Ordinary Russian town – or, if you will, a large village – no more and no less.

However, after 1922-1924, the city grew greatly. Already in 1927, 27 000 residents lived here, and in recent years – more than 60 000.

Finn, walking through the current streets of Äänislinna, can easily think that history is still largely repeated. Like Tsar Peter, all whose activities were directed to the West, once turned his attention to the wilderness to the west of Lake Onega and found there, as he thought, a suitable base for his plans in the Scandinavian direction, so the current owners of the Kremlin used Petrozavodsk as, as they themselves expressed, “an outpost against Scandinavia” and a “foothold of Bolshevism in Fennoscandia”. A strong garrison was placed in the city, the production of military products was expanded. The railway to the Finnish border has been built, it was already used by the Russians in the Winter War of 1939-1940. An airfield was built near the city, and entire barrack towns grew around it. A characteristic consequence of the inherent suspicion of Russians was that the Finns who lived or worked in the city, almost to the last person, were either taken to remote correctional camps in the depths of Russia, or as per Bolshevik’s habit were “liquidated”. The few defectors who were needed for propaganda against Finland were under strict guard, almost like prisoners, and their lives, according to the owners, were not of any special value.

And even now the city on Onego opens an interesting view for an observer arriving from the West. Tightly grouped four-walled one-room shacks with windows that have sunk into the ground and high-rise stone houses among them give a rather truthful picture of the city's life in the Bolshevik era and – at the same time, the whole Bolshevik’s society. In some way, this reminds their favourite style of a propaganda poster: black and bright red without any colour transitions, or even better, about their “dialectica”, which they have been emphasized in their journals and textbooks in recent years – about the system of opposites… Thesis and antithesis are clearly visible, but no synthesis.

J.R.

Hakkapeliitta -magazine No. 28, 1944

Translated by Margarita Matthew, 2024