Kuhmo
| coat of arms | map |
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| Basic data | |
| State : |
 Finland
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| Landscape : | Kainuu |
| Administrative community : | Kehys-Kainuu |
| Geographical location | 64 ° 8 ′ N , 29 ° 31 ′ E |
| Surface: | 5,456.88 km² |
| of which land area: | 4,806.89 km² |
| of which inland waterways: | 649.99 km² |
| Residents : | 8,329 (Dec 31, 2018) |
| Population density : | 1.7 inhabitants / km² |
| Municipality number : | 290 |
| Language (s) : | Finnish |
| Website : | kuhmo.fi |
Kuhmo [ ˈkuhmɔ ] (until 1937 Kuhmoniemi ) is a city in northeastern Finland with 8,329 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2018). It is located around 100 kilometers east of the city of Kajaani, right on the border with Russia .
geography
Kuhmo is located in northeastern Finland in the Kainuu region . The next bigger city is Kajaani 100 kilometers west, the distance to the capital Helsinki is 585 kilometers. Neighboring municipalities of Kuhmo are Suomussalmi in the north, Hyrynsalmi and Ristijärvi in the northwest, Sotkamo in the west and Nurmes and Lieksa in the south. In the east is the state border with Russia . The city of Kostomuksha ( Finnish : Kostamus ) is located on the Russian side about 85 kilometers northeast of Kuhmo.
The urban area of Kuhmo is very extensive with 5,457 square kilometers. This means that Kuhmo is more than twice the size of Luxembourg in terms of area . The urban area is very sparsely populated: over 80 percent of Kuhmo's land area consists of forests.
In addition to the main town of Kuhmo, the municipality includes the following villages:
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The Kuhmonniemi district is directly adjacent to the city center, while the other settlements are sometimes dozens of kilometers away. The low population density results in a modest infrastructure in the rural areas of Kuhmo. The town of Iivantiira, for example, could only be reached by water until a road was built in 1953 and, at least in Kainuu, it was literally called the “ass of the world”. There are still village schools in Hietaperä, Iivantiira, Lentiira, Lentua, Seilonen and Timoniemi, village shops only in Lentiira and Ylä-Vieksi.
Numerous animal species are found in the forests of Kuhmo, including all four of Finland's large carnivore species ( brown bears , wolves , lynxes and wolverines ) as well as the rare wild wood reindeer . 12 percent of Kuhmo's area is covered by water. In total there are more than 600 lakes in the urban area, in which, among other things, pike , whitefish , small vendace, trout and perch live. In Kuhmo, a total of 36 different corridors are designated as nature reserves as part of the Natura 2000 program . The largest protected area is the wilderness of Elimyssalo right on the Russian border with 82.93 square kilometers .
In the wilderness in the north of the municipal area is the training area Vuosanka (Finnish: Vuosangan ampuma-alue ), where the Kainuu Brigade ( Kainuu-Prikaati ) of the Finnish Army exercises maneuvers. Plans to expand the currently 14,000 hectare site were announced in 2006. Since the expansion would bring the gunfire much closer to human habitation, opposition to the plans of the Finnish Ministry of Defense has been rising, especially in the affected village of Ylä-Vieskä.
history
Originally, the Kuhmo area was inhabited by semi-nomadic Sami . The settled Finnish settlement of Kuhmos did not develop until the inland colonization by settlers from Savo in the 16th century. The name Kuhmo goes back to the farmer Kauppi Kuhmalainen, who was one of the first new settlers. Until the end of the 16th century, the Kuhmo area was nominally part of Russia. In 1595 the Swedish-Russian border was drawn east of Kuhmo in the Peace of Teusina and has remained unchanged at this point since then. The first documented mention of Kuhmo comes from a tax list from 1605.
Administratively, Kuhmo initially belonged to the parish of Paltamo , later it became a chapel parish of Sotkamo . In 1854 Kuhmo, which at that time still bore the name Kuhmoniemi, was detached from Sotkamo and raised to an independent parish, which was converted into a political municipality in 1865 when the administration of the rural parishes was separated from the church administration. In 1937, Kuhmoniemi was officially renamed Kuhmo.
Schwendbau was carried out in Kuhmo well into the 19th century . Other important industries were forestry, rafting and tar distilling . In 1900, when 12,717 barrels of tar were shipped from Kuhmo to the port city of Oulu , Kuhmo was the largest tar producer in Finland. In addition, Kuhmo was an important trading center that was frequented by traveling traders from Russian East Karelia. In 1874 a water-powered ironworks was founded in Kuhmo . By and large, however, Kuhmo remained a poor area in the 19th century and was plagued by famine several times. During the great famine of 1866–1868 , 1,000 cows died as a result of hunger and disease. In the 20th century the economic importance of agriculture increased, at the same time the population rose sharply from 3,310 in 1900 to over 9,000 in 1928.
During the Second World War, at the beginning of the Finnish-Soviet winter war at the end of 1939, a division of the Red Army advanced on Kuhmo. The civilian population of the community was evacuated to North Ostrobothnia and was only able to return after the end of the war. The Finns succeeded in the battle of Kuhmo in stopping the Soviet advance. The Soviet division was surrounded at the end of January 1940, but was able to hold out until the end of the war on March 13, 1940. The center of Kuhmo is one of the places that was subjected to the heaviest bombing during the Winter War.
The population was at its highest level in the 1970s at almost 14,000, before it fell to today's figure of around 10,000 due to the ongoing rural exodus in Finland . Kuhmo has had city rights since 1986. In 1992 the Vartius border crossing was reopened, allowing people to travel to Russia again.
politics
As is customary in northern Finland, the Finnish Center Party has by far the largest following. In the local elections in 2008 she received a little over half of the votes, in the city council she has an absolute majority with 19 out of 35 seats. The second largest group is the Social Democrats with seven members, followed by the Left Alliance and the conservative-liberal National Assembly Party with three seats each. Also represented on the city council are the Christian Democrats , the Green Bund and the right-wing populist grassroots , each with one member.
| Political party | 2008 election results | Seats |
|---|---|---|
| Center Party | 51.0% | 19th |
| Social democrats | 19.3% | 7th |
| Left alliance | 9.0% | 3 |
| National rally party | 8.1% | 3 |
| Christian Democrats | 5.2% | 1 |
| Green covenant | 4.2% | 1 |
| Base fins | 3.2% | 1 |
coat of arms
The coat of arms of Kuhmo was designed by Olof Eriksson and shows three golden fir trees in black (2: 1).
Town twinning
Kuhmo has twinned cities with Robertsfors in Sweden (since 1942), Šaľa in Slovakia (since 1977), Oroszlány in Hungary (since 1981) and with the neighboring Russian city of Kostomukscha (since 1986).
economy
Kuhmo has not only suffered from high unemployment since the severe economic crisis of the 1990s. In January 2007 the municipality had the fifth highest unemployment rate in Finland at 21.1 percent.
By far the most important line of business in Kuhmo is still forestry . The subsequent industries also account for more than half of the jobs in the secondary sector; The largest employer is the Kuhmo Oy sawmill . Another important branch of industry is soapstone processing ; the Tulikivi group mainly produces wood stoves at this location. Agriculture, where around 300 people are still employed, is still of some importance. The focus is on livestock farming, especially dairy farming.
Tourism , especially nature tourism, and border traffic with Russia are of growing importance . In 2007, 410,000 border crossings were recorded at the Vartius border crossing. This makes it the fifth most frequented border crossing from Finland to Russia.
Culture and sights
A chamber music festival is held every summer , at which numerous chamber musicians of world renown play and which attracts thousands of visitors, including from abroad. The festival was founded in 1970 by cellist Seppo Kimanen ; The Romanian Vladimir Mendelssohn has been intendent since 2005. Other music institutions and events are grouped around the festival, such as the Virtuoso Competence Center , which is designed as an internationally oriented research and teaching facility for chamber music. A new concert hall, the “Kuhmohaus” ( Kuhmo-talo ), was built in 1991, mainly for the needs of the festival, and opened in 1993. Planned by architect Matti Heikkinen from Oulu , the modern building is also available as a cinema outside of the concert season.
In the eighties of the 20th century, the city of Kuhmo built the "Kalevaladorf" in the immediate vicinity of the city center. As a replica of old Finnish villages and a location for various exhibitions, the village was supposed to bring the tradition of the Finnish national epic Kalevala to life. From 1996 the village was touted as an alternative to Santa Park on the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi . Nevertheless, the village was never able to break even and was sold to a private group of companies at the end of 2006. The village intends to reopen this in mid-2008 under the new name Kalevala Spirit Adventure Park with a new, more touristy orientation. The culture and information center Juminkeko is also concerned with the Kalevala tradition , which is also committed to cultural exchange with White Karelia on the other side of the border . The center operates in a modern wooden building erected in 1999 in the center of Kuhmo.
Kuhmo Church is located on the banks of the rapids of the Pajakkajoki River and was built in 1816 as a neoclassical cruciform church on the site of its predecessor, which burned down in 1804. In the years 1859 and 1860, the four ends of the cross were extended to include classic gable roofs based on drawings by John Oldenburg , and in 1862 a free-standing clock tower was built. The church has since represented a representative of the simple Empire style. The church, which is large for the conditions of the region, offers seats for 1250 believers on an area of 1295 m². On the other bank is the parish built around 1900 .
In the villages of Kuhmos there are numerous well-preserved examples of folk Finnish building tradition, some of which also reveal the strong influence of neighboring White Karelia. The settlement of Rimpi, part of the village of Vartius on the Russian border, is traditionally part of the Karelian culture. It was founded around 1850 by the Karelian Eljas Ahtonen and was visited in the further course of the century by many national romantic-Karelian- inspired Finnish intellectuals and artists such as Louis Sparre , Samuli Paulaharju and Akseli Gallen-Kallela , who here the Finnish resp. Karelian folk culture in a very original form. The elderly Ahtonen served Gallen-Kallela as a model for the figure of Väinämöinen in the famous Aino triptych . The village's wooden houses, built in the Karelian style, were destroyed except for one during the winter war .
Personalities
- Paavo Puurunen (* 1973), the last Finnish world champion in biathlon
literature
- Antero Heikkinen: Kirveskansan elämää. Ihmiskohtaloita Kuhmon erämäissä . Porvoo 1988.
- Alpo Räisänen: Kuhmon Murrekirja . Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toiminto 581. Tampere 1993.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Maanmittauslaitos (Finnish land surveying office): Suomen pinta-alat kunnittain January 1, 2010 (PDF; 199 kB)
- ↑ Statistical Office Finland: Table 11ra - Key figures on population by region, 1990-2018
- ↑ a b c Reijo Heikkinen: Kuhmo - kulttuuri- ja erämaakaupunki ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Finnish)
- ↑ iivantiira.net ( Memento of the original from August 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ ymparisto.fi ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Kuhmon Natura-alueet (Finnish Ministry of Environment)
- ↑ vieksi.fi ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - VUOSANGAN HARJOITUSALUE
- ↑ Website of the town of Kuhmo: Pitkä historia ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Finnish)
- ↑ Finnish Ministry of Justice: Result of the 2008 local elections
- ↑ kuntalehti.fi ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2014 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kuhmossa toimivat yritykset ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Kuhmo Municipality website
- ↑ Yleistietoa Kuhmon maaseudusta ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Finnish border guards: Rajanylitysmäärät itärajan rajanylityspaikoilla (number of border crossings at the border crossings of the eastern border, Finnish)
- ↑ virtuosi.fi
- ↑ kuhmotalo.fi
- ↑ a b University Center Kajaani - Kuhmo - kulttuuri- ja erämaakaupunki ( Memento of the original from March 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Uusiutunut Kalevala-kylä avaa ovensa Kuhmossa ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - Article in the daily Karjalainen on November 17, 2007.
- ↑ Juminkeko
- ↑ Karjalaiset jäljet ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Vienen runokylät: Rimpi
- ↑ Rimmin vienankarjalainen kylä (Finnish Monument Protection Register , 1993)
Hyrynsalmi | Kajaani | Kuhmo | Paltamo | Puolanka | Ristijärvi | Sotkamo | Suomussalmi | Vaala