Lieksa shares a wilderness border with Russia that stretches for almost one hundred kilometres. The location of the Ruunaa area along the Lieksanjoki, near the Finnish-Russian border, and in the middle ground between eastern and western culture has impacted the region’s economy and culture in many ways. The Lieksanjoki has been an important access route. Many cultural travellers and researchers travelled to Russian Karelia via Aittokoski at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Our border guards
The significance of the eastern border changed after Finland became independent. Political and military guarding of the border replaced customs surveillance. The Border control post started operations in Aittokoski in 1919. After the war, the control post was moved to the village of Ruunaa on the shore of Matkalahti, where it operated until the end of 2003.
Relations between border guards and the local population became closer after initial tensions. Help was given both ways. Uras Oinonen, who lived in Ruunaanvaara in the 1930s, remembers the important contribution made by the border guards to the life of the village since his childhood. Border guards visited the Oinonen family during their patrols, especially during the winter time. When there was little contact with other people, visits by the border guards and story moments were a significant boost in the midst of everyday life.
During the Winter War, there were few battles in the Ruunaa area. In the early weeks of the war, both Finns and Russians burned down houses in the area around Lake Ruunaa.
Forestry and log floating
Before the loggers appeared in the village of Ruunaa after the middle of the 19th century, the forests in the area were slashed and burned for growing bread grain. The use of forests in the area increased as sawmills established at the mouth of the Pielisjoki extended their procurement of timber to the crown forests in the area, and to the headwaters of the Lieksanjoki. This provided the villagers with job opportunities in winter in the logging camps, during the spring with log floating, and in catering for the logging camps.
Rivers flowing into Finland from the lake region on the Russian side enabled good log floating connections to the sawmills in North Karelia. At the same time, the rivers channelled the direction of Repola timber to Finland. Log floating on the Lieksajoki and Tuulijoki already began after the middle of the 19th century.
On the Lieksanjoki river, which served as the main log floating channel for border log floating, log floating started up again after the war in 1957. During the peak period of 1964-1968, the volume of imported timber received on the Lieksanjoki increased to more than 400,000 cubic metres annually.
Ferry romance and salmon fishing
Until the end of the 19th century, Lieksa and Repola’s trade connections were dependent on winter roads following waterways. The winter road went from Lieksa via Pankakoski to Ruunaa Änisenvaara, from where it forked through Aittokoski to Tuulivaara or through Kokkojärvi to Lentiera.
With the establishment of the forestry administration, a crown forest farm was established in the area, on the Naarajoki in 1853. This farm was located at the Naarajoki crossing point, which was crossed by a horse track leading from Lieksa to Ruunaa and from there to Russia. In order to improve this important route, the inhabitants of the village were obliged to maintain the Naarajoki ferry.
The ferry romance ended in Ruuna in August 1984, when the Naarajoki bridge was opened for traffic. The Putaansalmi bridge had already replaced the ferry in 1968.
Lieksanjoki was a famous salmon river. In 1899, mention was made of the Lieksa rapids as a fisherman’s dream spot in a British travel guide. Local officials engaged in lure fishing for salmon in Ruunaa waters at the beginning of the 20th century. The number of fishermen increased hugely in the 1980s and 1990s. The Lieksanjoki provides an excellent framework for restoring the natural life cycle of endangered salmon, which have been the subject of several projects.
From power plant plans to white-water rafting
Interest in the Ruunaa rapids construction for power plant production increased at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. The plan for the construction of the Siikakoski and Pudaskoski power plants brought about the public debate known as the “rapids war”.
The nearly two-decade-long dispute over the construction of the Ruunaa rapids was finally resolved in 1987, when the rapids were protected and the Ruunaa hiking area was established.
The launch of the Ruunaa tourism industry took place in the mid-1970s, when entrepreneurs in Lieksa started organising paid white-water rafting trips.
Demand was high and the popularity of white-water rafting surprised the local tourist crowd. The popularity of white-water rafting with wooden boats increased significantly after the mid-1980s and peaked in the next decade.
Metsähallitus (the Finnish Forestry Authority) started developing service facilities for the hiking area in the late 1980s. The Ruunaa Hiking Centre was opened in Neitikoski in 1990 and the Ruunaa Nature House in the yard of the former forest ranger’s house on the shore of the Naarajoki in June 1992. Tourism had come to Ruunaa in the place of log floating. Nowadays, there are 60,000 – 70,000 visitors to the Ruunaa hiking area every year.
Text Asko Saarelainen