Mapping trip to Kostomuksha and Kalevala areas

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The mapping trip participants

Despite the current pandemic situation, we do not stop our active work on «Ordinary Man in a Great War» project implementation.

On November, 16 – 19 project partners from KarRC RAS, Republican Centre for State Protection of Objects of Cultural  Heritage, and Ethnocultural centre «Kalevalatalo» participated in the mapping trip to the project pilot areas in Kostomuksha urban district and Kalevala district. The main tasks were to get acquainted with the existing tourist sites and their condition, to assess the possible project contribution to the cross-border tourist route development.

The mapping trip programme started with the excursion to the visit-centre of «Kostomukshsky» reserve. The reserve director Sergey Tarkhov gave a tour of the main expositions, told about the reserve creation history. The joint decision on cooperation within the project and the tourist route was made. 
The project participants suggested including II World War-related information into the content of excursions:

                                  


During the working meeting with the tourist company «Kotiranta» (Kostomuksha) the issues of the new tourist route promotion were discussed.  In the village of Voknavolok, the working group visited the House of Village, got acquainted with the accumulated materials on war-related topics and chose the facilities for the new museum exhibition that will be created within the project:

                                   

In Kalevala district, the trip participants took part in a meeting with the Kalevala district administration. We discussed the 1st year project implementation results and outlined the plans for historical monuments reconstruction in 2021.

N. Vasilyeva (director of Ethnocultural centre «Kalevalatalo») and S. Kondratiev   (public and political newspaper «News of Kalevala») conducted the tour to the important memorial sites in the Kalevala district territory: the Kis-Kis memorial, the memorial sign of the Soviet troops' defence line (14 km of the Kalevala – Tungozero road), a memorial sign installed by representatives of Finland. Republican Centre for State Protection of Objects of Cultural Heritage representatives assessed the preservation state of the objects.

In the village of Kalevala, we visited Ethnocultural house-museum of runopevtsy, the printing house-museum and the former Ukhta hydroelectric power station (near the village). Moreover, the participants visited the Ethnocultural centre «Kalevalatalo», got acquainted with the main expositions that will be included in the new tourist route as well.

                                   

During the mapping trip, the project expert S. Yalovitsyna (ILLH KarRC RAS) conducted interviews with local residents in the city of Kostomuksha and the village of Kalevala. The project participants and new partners discussed the branding issues for the project and tourist route.

The active discussion of the ideas for the Kis-Kis memorial reconstruction; design and content elaboration for the museum expositions in villages of Voknavolok and Kalevala; involvement of the new partners – local tourist companies interested in the participation in the project-related events and the new tourist route promotion – all this let us specify further working tasks for the project implementation.