Pelkosenniemi

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Pelkos laces kunta
coat of arms map
Pelkosenniemi coat of arms Location of Pelkosenniemi in Finland
Basic data
State : FinlandFinland Finland
Landscape : Lapland
Administrative community : Eastern Lapland
Geographical location 67 ° 6 ′  N , 27 ° 30 ′  E Coordinates: 67 ° 6 ′  N , 27 ° 30 ′  E
Surface: 1,881.87 km²
of which land area: 1,836.47 km²
of which inland waterways: 45.40 km²
Residents : 954 (December 31, 2018)
Population density : 0.5 inhabitants / km²
Municipality number : 583
Language (s) : Finnish
Website : pelkosenniemi.fi

Pelkosenniemi [ ˈpɛlkɔsɛnːiɛmi ] in Eastern Lapland is a municipality in the Finnish landscape of Lapland , that is, in the part of Lapland that lies in Finland . It is located around 140 km northeast of its capital, Rovaniemi, and is the smallest municipality in this region, the only one with less than 1000 inhabitants.

Pelkosenniemi still had 1601 inhabitants in 1980, since then this number has steadily decreased. Of the 958 inhabitants at the end of 2017, 358 lived in the main town of Pelkosenniemi and 563 in sparsely populated areas; the coordinates of the remaining 37 were unknown.

The community is on State Road 5 . From south to north you will find (bold: place in the municipality) :

  • Kiemunkivaara , just behind the Kemijärvi municipal boundary . The road runs upstream parallel to the Kemijoki River .
  • Saunavaara , one of the oldest villages in the municipality.
  • the turning of a road to the west to the village Pyhäjärvi, 13 km away, on the lake of the same name. Halfway there is Korvakumpu . To the south of it, the village of Saukkoaapa was founded in 1951 , but was given up again in the 1970s.
  • The only bridge over the Kemijoki is in Pelkosenniemi , the main town of the municipality. A road leads over Arvospuoli , which is on the river opposite Saunavaaran, to the neighboring community of Salla . The centers of the neighboring communities are 80 kilometers apart.
  • The Lapinniementie is an inconspicuous road that ends after 400 meters at the confluence of the Kitinen in the Kemijoki . From at least 1910 to 1964 there was a hand-operated wooden ferry over the Kitinen, which was replaced by a bridge in 1965. The connection to the east led along the Kemijoki. Today the bridge is one kilometer further north.
  • From here, the 5 leads upstream parallel to the Kitinen river .
  • the junction of the 965 east to the neighboring municipality of Savukoski
  • Kairala lies on both sides of the Kitinen, connected by a bridge. A road to the east leads to the Luiro, 8 km away, on the Luiro River of the same name
  • In Kokkosniva a bridge of the 5 leads over the Kitinen, after which the river and the road separate. An upstream side road leads past the [Kitinen # Wasserkraftwerke | Hydroelectric power station Kokkosniva] back south and after 10 kilometers reaches the village of Suvanto , one of the few villages in Lapland that were not destroyed when the German Wehrmacht withdrew in 1944. The bridge from there further south was built in 1991, before there was a wooden cable ferry, the oldest known photo is from 1914.
  • Aapajärvi , named after the moor lake of the same name, consists of only a few scattered houses and was mostly settled only after the Second World War. A twelve-kilometer road to the northeast leads to Härkäjoki .
  • the municipal boundary to Sodankylä .

In the southwestern area of the municipality, developed by the 962 , there is the 540 m high Fjell Pyhätunturi , on the western slope of amethysts is dug and the ski center Pyhä at the foot of the mountain. Both belong to the Pyhä Luosto National Park .

In the east of the municipality, the Vuotos reservoir was already planned in the 1960s, was rejected after protests in 1982 and supposedly permanently prevented by the law for the protection of rapids in 1983. After the 1991 election , a conservative bourgeois government came to power and planning was resumed. In 2000 the Finnish Hufvudstadsbladet wrote that bitter resistance from the population, changing positions of the governments and constant reprisals by the four-fifths state power plant company had made the project a “national trauma” . The last plan for implementation in 2008 by Economics Minister Mauri Pekkarinen from the Center Party was discontinued due to opposition from the Greens , then government partners. The area that was to be flooded was still inhabited by 150 people in the 1950s and was nearly cleared by the turn of the millennium.

During the Winter War in December 1939, Pelkosenniemi was the scene of bitter fighting between the Finnish and Red Armies at the Battle of Salla ; monuments commemorate the fallen on both sides.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Maanmittauslaitos (Finnish land surveying office): Suomen pinta-alat kunnittain January 1, 2010 . (PDF; 199 kB)
  2. ↑ Statistical Office Finland: Table 11ra - Key figures on population by region, 1990-2018
  3. ↑ a b c website of the municipality (Finnish)
  4. ↑ a b Ferry stations in Finland - then and now on www.fjordfaehren.de
  5. ↑ a b c Renate Nimtz-Köster: Land under for whooper swans Der Spiegel 27/2000, p. 216/217
  6. ↑ a b Last free waters threatened , on September 23, 2008 on n-tv.de
  7. ↑ Finnish Wikipedia: fi: Vuotoksen tekojärvi
  8. ^ Before the Flood - The Last Couple in Vuotos , Nordic Film Days Lübeck, 2001

Web links

Commons : Pelkosenniemi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files