The coffee pot of the Kexholm assembly rooms

– My father Oskari Partanen worked as a tinsmith and ran a tinsmith's business in Kexholm at Kasarminkatu 12. His work also included the tinning of copper vessels, mainly copper coffee pots. One of his customers was the Kexholm Seurahuone, which used copper vessels. Usually, they didn't start tinning just one pot, but waited until there were about a dozen pots to be tinned, says Leo Partanen.

In Käkisalmi, the set of pans had just been soldered when the tinker received orders to go to the front and the customers were ordered to evacuate, including Leo's mother Alviina, the narrator of this story, and her sister.

– According to Oskari's orders, Mamma buried as many things as she could deep in the earth in the garden. The tinned copper pans were also among those buried. The Seurahuone coffee pot was large-sized; coffee was dispensed from it into portion pots to be taken by the waiters to customers, Leo Partanen said when donating the copper coffee pot to the Käkisalmi Foundation.

The Partasens returned to their home regions during the Continuation War and the coffee pots were dug up from the earth. When the final departure came, the coffee pot from the Seurahuone came to Heinola on the evacuee transport.

Oskari Partanen's tinsmith's shop continued its operations in Heinola, first on Laaksotie and later at Lampikatu 21. The copper pot was still waiting for its collector and, of course, payment for the work done. This was never received, and the pot, along with its stories, ended up in the Käkisalmi Museum. Thanks for that.