Short History of Suomussalmi

Suomussalmi is one of the oldest settled regions in Finland. There were people living here just after the last Ice Age when the rest of Finland was still covered by the ancient sea. We don't know much about those people, who they were, where they came from. We only have ancient fireplaces left which heve been carbon-dated. We can imagine that they were nomads, hunters or fishers or all of that. Perhaps they were ancestors of the Sami people still living in northern Finland.

We know that the whole of Finland was settled by Sami a thousand years ago when the Fenno-Ugrian settlement began to spread from south and east. Sami were nomads and the people moving here got their livelihood more from acriculture. So Sami moved little by little to the north, pushed by the new settlement and style of living.

The area of Finland was part of Sweden for centuries and the borderline was changing in conflicts between Sweden and Russia. Suomussalmi was long nobody's area and the Sami living here were taxed by both Finns (Swedes) and Karelian people living east of us. In the 1500's the King of Sweden ordered that the area of Kainuu, and Suomussalmi as part of it, should be settled. He gave taxfree years for those who moved here. The first wave of new settlement came in the middle of the 1500's but disappeared in conflicts with Karelians. The reason why Karelians didn't like the new settlers was that Kainuu was an important trademen's route from the White Sea to the west.

The settlement of Kainuu and Suomussalmi

The ancestors of the people living here in Kainuu today came during the last years of the1500's and after that. They were farmers but also fishers and hunters. We know that when Gustav II Adolf - King of Sweden at the beginning of the 1600's - was at war in the areas of present Germany, his army was partly fed by the dried pike caught in Kainuu.

There was a big conflict between Russians and Finns at the beginning of the 1700's and the settlement almost disappeared in that war - but not fully. After the peace in the 1720's the number people started increasing and the area of Suomussalmi was gradually settled.

At the beginning of the 1800's Sweden lost Finland to Russia and after that Finland was an autonomous part of Russia for over 100 years. At the end of the Russian time a lot of people moved to America because they were unemployed and the army of the Russian tsar was recruiting Finnish men as soldiers for their wars.

In 1917 Finland got its independence in the waves of World War I and the Proletarian Revolution in Russia. The eastern border was closed but was lined through its old areas. World War II begun in Finland by the Winter War at the end of November 1939. Stalin's Soviet troops tried to cut Finland in two parts. The troops crossed the border in Suomussalmi in aim to march to the city of Oulu in the west. But the hard defence of Finnish troops destroyed this attempt and over 20 000 Soviet soldiers died in the frosts of Suomussalmi during the winter 1939-40. The victory of Raate Road in Suomussalmi is one of the miracles of global war history.

At present many people, mostly young, are moving out from this area looking for work. The first wave of moving was when people moved to Sweden in the late 1960's and 1970's. Today people are moving to southern Finland and the area of Oulu to study and work. There are a lot of unemployed people and the age structure is emphasized on old people. The population of Suomussalmi is now a little over 10 000, when it was over 15 000 40 years ago .

At the beginning of 2005 an administration experiment started. The goal is to connect the resources of Kainuu so that in 10 years Kainuu should be one and strong economic region. Perhaps we will abandon the concept and administration of municipalities - such as Suomussalmi - and there will be one but widely settled Kainuu. Good education, new technology and innovative, hard-working and enthusiastic people will make that possible.

Livelihood in Kainuu and Suomussalmi

The traditional livelihoods used to be agriculture, fishing and hunting. But, before the border was closed after 1917, this area was also and important traderoute from the White Sea - from Karelian Kemi and to Archangel to Oulu.

In the 1800's tar rose to play an important role because ships were still wooden and needed protection of tar. Much of Finnish tar was burned here and rowed using special tar boats to Oulu where the burners sold it getting money or food supplies. There was also iron factory in Suomussalmi using local lake ore as its raw material. The need of tar decreased at the end of the 1800's and the iron factory went bankrupt producing an army of unemployed people. This was one reason for the emigration to America.

Suomussalmi got the name "nälkämaa" which means a place where people are starving. It really was "nälkämaa" and people were eating bark bread and many died in malnutrition or diseases caused by poor food. Kainuu was connected with rest of the country by railway at the beginning of the 1900's and the questionable reputation of "nälkämaa" was history. People no longer needed to starve even in years of crop failure.

Forests were now producing raw material for paper industry and other wood processing. People got their livelihood apart from acriculture also by working in forests and factories. After WW II there was a time of rebuilding but later on a lot of people were unemployed. Kainuu and Suomussalmi got some help when the Russian mining city Kostamus was built partly by Finns. Agriculture has been disappearing especially after Finland joined to European Union because the farms are small and they can't alone invest what EU is demanding.

At the end of 2004 Suomussalmi "won in a lottery" getting an announcement that the local factory producing condensators is increasing its volume and employing over 150 new people.

For years tourism has been under development and is increasing little by little. We have clean nature and beautiful lakes and a ridge area, Hossa, in northern northern part of Suomussalmi.