Erkki Heiskanen

Erkki Heiskanen has been heavily involved in maintaining Karelian cultural ties, acting as a custodian of tradition, an organiser of excursions and a promoter of memorial projects.

Käkisalmi Fortress, the castle museum and the church are key locations where this work has been carried out.

The town has for millennia been an outpost of East and West whose ”owner” has changed many times. The coat of arms of Kexholm aptly depicts a crane, known as a sentinel bird, holding a ball in its claw.

–         If the marble falls, the guard wakes up.

The Lutheran church in Kexholm was not very well maintained after the war. For a time, it was used as a youth centre, among other things. A fire damaged the interior in the 2010s.

In the 90s, the castle museum director's Maria Lihajan with their contribution, the restoration of the building completed in the 1930s was got under way.

–         In 2013, Liha and his businessman friends visited Finland. The purpose was to acquire support and even money for the restoration. The delegation visited, among other places, the Lahti Historical Museum because there was an exhibition about Vyborg.

The cooperation resulted in plans for, among other things, a culture house in Käkisalmi, as well as a permanent Finland exhibition in the church.

–         Lihaja initially succeeded in obtaining local funding for the restoration of the church. The primary matter was to restore the roof, which was indeed achieved quite quickly. Following discussions in Lahti, windows with their frames were also acquired. Surprisingly, the restored exterior door bore a very strong resemblance to the original.

However, the continuation of the projects was not straightforward.

–         Political relations between Finland and Russia fluctuated, so progress and delays happened accordingly. This applied in particular to military memorials. Now, in 2023, all cultural exchange and project activity is completely cut off.

Heiskanen took part in hiking activities with members of parish communities in the Suvanto region, among others.

–         One project, among others, was that we took turns presenting our home towns to each other. When it was the turn of my home region of Kexholm in 2010, I got the idea that we could go deeper beneath the surface.

Heiskanen took a geologist and an archaeologist on the trip as experts. Thus spoke the geologist Matti Saarnisto and archaeology Aleksandr Saksa joined the excursionists.

–         The programme for the trip included a visit to the site of the Suotniemi faience factory, in addition to geological and archaeological sites. Remnants of the factory remain, but its products can still be explored in museums today. For example, the Heinola Museum has a collection of Suotniemi items.

Sacrificial stones, also known as cup-and-ring stones, were also found in Suotniemi.

–         From the vodka bottle, ”normal” victims were poured into the cups.

Konevitsa is known as a church tourism destination, but it rarely comes up that it is also a geologically interesting place.

–         Guided by Saarnisto, we observed the ancient shore embankments of Lake Ladoga, which at that point were remarkably high compared to the present water levels.

Heiskanen made a total of around a dozen trips to Kakhisalmi. The biggest endeavour was the memorial built in the churchyard.

–          The project took about five years in total, from 1991 to 1996. Yuri Deryabin and with the favourable grant from the Ministry of Education, the project was brought to a successful conclusion.

After many twists and turns, the memorial became much smaller than had been planned.

–          It was designed by an architect Kauko Kokko. Complications arose partly because the city leadership changed in the meantime and discussions had to be started again.

Disagreements on the subject itself also slowed down the permitting process and construction work.

–         The Russian view was that no Finnish soldiers had been buried in the churchyard. We, on the other hand, knew that there were precisely 105 of them there. Photographs taken at the funerals finally convinced the Russian authorities.

The memorial has a concrete core lined with dressed granite blocks. In the middle is a cross made of weathering steel, just under a metre high.

–          This is an alloyed, weathering steel grade from which rain washes rust colour off through an oxidation process. The rust was intended to symbolise the blood of Christ dripping onto the cross.

When the campers returned a couple of years later, some well-meaning person had painted over the cross of rust.

The dedication ceremony of the cross was able to be arranged in July 1996.

–          People arrived by the busload from all over Finland. The ceremony was conducted by the Field Bishop Hannu Niskanen. The contractor offered coffee and there was even a tipple on offer in the Russian way. The booze was left untouched, as there was no need for it in the group.

The project also faced persistent opposition.

–         The opposition was recalled by the contractor's lorry left at the site, which had brought the memorial stones from Finland. The lorry had been the target of arson.

Heiskanen was involved in the project to create the memorial for the Battle of Kelja.

–         It was also a project lasting around five years. The people of Sakkola were the most active in this, handling contacts with Russian municipal decision-makers.

The memorial made of Kaarlahti granite was successfully put in place at Runteenmäki in the village of Kelja in 2009.

–         Memorial projects are part of the Käkisalmi heritage work, to which I am committed. It is my way of showing respect for the work and sacrifices of past generations.

Next on Heivanen's agenda is the 85th anniversary celebration of the Battle of Kelja, to be held in Heinola on 27/12/24.

The war veterans' support association Iltarusko organised trips to Karelia, which Heiskanen also took part in.

–         These trips were directed to the battlefields of military history. We also visited Kexholm, of course. It was customary to belt out the Karelian Anthem on a stage built in the castle courtyard.

Twilight excursions have continued even after the border closed, although to battle sites on the Finnish side.

Evacuees very rarely have items relating to their home and home region preserved, as departure was rapid and transport options limited.

Lauri Komonen from Kexholm was an exception in this regard.

–         When Komonen was packing the evacuation sledge in the late winter of 1940, he managed to take four statues of the evangelists from Kexholm Church. The statues, which were originally on the outer edge of Kexholm Church's pulpit, have been placed on the wall of the Sinilähti prayer house in Heinola.

Likewise, the church bell, weighing 272 kilograms, was successfully rescued from the perils of war.

–         The bell was cast in Bochum, Germany, in 1897. For a long time, the bell was in the barn of the Purola estate at the southern end of Nynäsinlahti, before it was installed in the prayer house completed in 1957.

A Karelian community formed at Siniläähde because almost the entire population of Pärnä, the home village of Heiskanen’s mother, also moved to Heinola, settling along Karjalantie on the former lands of Nynäs Manor, which by that time already belonged to the UPM forest company.

–         My father got a job as a caretaker at the course centre for war-blinded in 1950, from which time our family lived in the area until the autumn of 1959.

The annual Käkisalmi festivals are the most important forum in Heinola for fostering Karelian culture.

–         When we switched back to a two-day celebration, it brought more work, but also a positive significance to the event. This is the kind of heritage work by which we keep our own roots alive.

The war in Ukraine has brought about a rather peculiar situation in that public interest in the Winter War and the Continuation War, as well as the issue of the evacuees, has increased.

–         Things that happened 80 years ago are suddenly front-page news.

• Erkki Heiskanen
  Born in Heinola in 1949.
  Board member of the Käkisalmi Foundation for over 30 years.
  Heinola Region Karelians, nowadays the Heinola Karelian Society, board member. 
  Board member of Heinola War Invalids Association and the Association for the Tradition Room of Our Wars' Veterans.
  Member of the Winter War Separate Battalion 6, Karelian Battalion, Heritage Association.