Karelia: Where the Northern Rivers Run

In August of 1702, Peter the Great led a detachment of nine thousand troops on a secret mission into the thick Karelian taiga. Disembarking on the southern coast of the White Sea, they undertook a clandestine raid, hacking their way through thick forests and swamps. They covered 270 km in just nine days, reaching the shores of Lake Onega and surprising Swedish soldiers at the fortress in Noteburg (Russian name Oreshek). It was the first major Russian victory in the Northern War and it was a prologue to Russia’s new role in the Baltics. The following year, the cities of St Petersburg and Petrozavodsk were founded. Russia had a new northern window to the West.

Today, 300 years later, Russia has lost many of the achievements gained during Peter’s time. But Karelia, with is advantageous geographic position—it has a 700 km long border with Finland—endures as a vital window to the rest of the world.

The Republic of Karelia, one of the 89 subjects of the Russian Federation also has unique natural wealth. Sometimes called the “Young Lungs of Europe,” Karelia is rich in virgin forests, clean air and pristine lakes and rivers. Karelia stretches for thousands of kilometers, from the shores of Lakes Onega and Ladoga in the South, to the White Sea in the North and East. In between there are thousands of lakes and rivers. And 50% of the republic is forested.

The Karelian region has been populated since at least 7000 BC. Today, the republic’s inhabitants are a mix of Finno-Ugro and Slavic tribes. The Finno-Hungarians are divided into the Saams (who live in the North), and the Karels and Veps (in the South). The Karels were mentioned for the first time in old Scandinavian sagas, while Russian manuscripts mention the Veps in 882 and the Karels in 1143. The first settlements of Slavs appeared southeast of Lake Ladoga in the 8th and 9th centuries. In the 9th to 11th centuries, the Slavs began migrating along the shores of the Onega river toward the White Sea.

Until the 12th century, Karelia was a part of no state. But, as neighboring Sweden and Rus’ began to grow in size and power, that changed. In 1227 Prince Yaroslav of Novgorod baptized part of Karelia to orthodoxy. Eleven years later, Sweden baptized some of Karelia to Catholicism. By 1323, Sweden and Novgorod had divided Karelia up into a Swedish West (Vyborg Karelia) and a Russian East (Ladoga Karelia).

Interestingly, unlike most of central Russia, the region of Karelia was never under the Tartar Yoke (1223-1480) and its people were never subjects of harsh serfdom. This unique history may explain Karelians’ persistent independence of spirit.

By the late 16th century, peace over Karelia had broken down. First Sweden conquered the Ladoga Karelia region, but then had to give it back to Russia because it was too distant for it to govern. Then, in 1617, when Rus’ was consumed by the Time of Troubles, Moscow turned to Sweden for help in turning back the Polish threat. As a reward, Sweden was given Ladoga Karelia. But this deal soon broke down. In 1656-58, Russia sought to take back Ladoga Karelia and Orthodox was pitted against Protestant (Sweden had embraced Martin Luther). The result, in fact, was a virtual depopulation of Ladoga Karelia, when the region’s inhabitants fled from the war and settled in southern regions of Rus’, mainly near Tver.

Until the late 17th century, the population density in Karelia was low. But Peter the Great’s reforms and imperial expansion radically transformed this remote region. The Great Northern War against Sweden (1700-21) required a military build-up, so the Petrovsky defense plant (mainly to forge cannons) was built in 1703 on the shores of Lake Onega. The settlement became Petrozavodsk, capital of the Olonetsk guberniya.

The Northern War ended with most of modern day Finland and all of modern Karelia in Russian hands. After the Napoleonic Wars, in 1811, Karelia and Finland were united under Russian control into the Grand Duchy of Finland. This status remained until 1917. One month after the Bolshevik Revolution, Finland declared its independence (recognized by the Bolsheviks) and fought a short but bloody war of independence. The 1920 Treaty of Tartu set the border of Finland and Russia to somewhat east of where it stands today, dividing the region into a Finnish Karelia and an Eastern Karelia under Russian control. The Olonetsk guberniya was renamed the Karel Labor Commune.

The final battle over Karelia began on the morning of November 29, 1939, when the USSR invaded Finland. Stalin, fearing Soviet vulnerability in the North, had demanded from Finland the Karelian isthmus (above Petersburg) in exchange for some territory north of Lake Ladoga. Finland refused. Unexpectedly fierce Finnish resistance turned the war into a debacle that saw the USSR bounced from the emasculated League of  Nations. By March of 1940, Russia was finally making headway in its invasion, and Finland sued for peace. Russia got the isthmus, as well as the town of Vyborg, combined it with Soviet Karelia and dubbed it the Karelo-Finnish Republic. But just a little over a year later, Finland allied with Germany, and attacked south and east to occupy the Karelian lands. In June of 1944, Russia’s counterattack in the North expelled the Finns and the USSR re-annexed large parts of Finnish Karelia, re-naming it the Karelo-Finnish SSR (a quite elevated status as a republic—equal to, say, Ukraine—which, in 1956, was lowered to that of an autonomous republic).

In the period between the Bolshevik Revolution and WWII, many “Red Finns” emigrated to Soviet Russia to take part in the socialist experiment there (see box, page 20). This movement was so significant that many of these highly-educated Finns assumed important positions of leadership in the Karelian Republic. Finnish (instead of the indigenous Karelian) became an official language of the republic, along with Russian.

Today, Karelia has 800,000 inhabitants, 72% of which are Russian. 11% are Karels, 7% Belorusans, and just over 3% each are Finns and Ukrainians. Less than 1% are Veps. Whereas in the Soviet era, nationalities were drowned in the sea of “one soviet people,” today ethnic differences are celebrated in Karelia (a not insignificant factor being that, the head of the Karelian government from 1990 to 1998, Vladimir Stepanov, was a Karel).

New political movements (e.g. the Karelian Movement, the Union of Karelian People, the Society of the Veps), folk groups and choirs are flourishing. Schools are allowed to teach in the Vep and Karelian languages, and newspapers and media publish and broadcast in native tongues. Paradoxically, Finnish culture, which was dominant in the region during the Soviet era, has subsided greatly. The economic crisis has led much of the local Finish intelligentsia to emigrate to Finland.

Karelia’s Course

In the heady, confusing times after the break up of the USSR, even calm Karelia fell victim to excesses and extremes. The defense of national and cultural distinctions gave birth to exaggerated territorial claims. The extreme right in neighboring Finland even went as far as to demand Karelia’s withdrawal from Russia and its annexation by Finland. One Finnish extremist organization sought to extradite Soviet partisans for acts committed on Finnish soil in WWII. But such movements remained outside the mainstream and never won broad popular support, either in Finland or Karelia.

“There are no extremists in Karelia,” said Chairman of the Karelian government Sergei Katanandov. “Today it is economically profitable to be a quiet, calm region ...”

Katanandov, the former mayor of Petrozavodsk, became the head of the Karelian government one year ago, defeating Viktor Stepanov. The styles and backgrounds of the two politicians could not have been more different. Whereas Stepanov was a vestige of the old Party nomenklatura, Katanandov is a technocrat in the mold of Moscow’s Mayor Yuri Luzhkov: prior to his tenure as mayor, he worked his way through the managerial ranks of Karelia’s largest construction enterprise, finally heading a construction trust.

Katanandov’s successes as mayor of Petrozavodsk (where 1⁄3 of Karelians live) from 1994-1997 were also significant. The Petrozavodsk Thermal Electric Station was switched to more efficient natural gas, the city government won contracts for city enterprises, housing construction grew, social aid was channeled to the needy, a new embankment on the Onega river was completed, pensions were paid.

Katanandov is a tough and assertive administrator. Irritated by what he defined as the wishy-washy nature of the Stepanov era, he advanced the slogan: “Time for an atypical people and atypical solutions.” His self-acknowledged credo is “Make a step! Do it yourself!”

No wonder then that Katanandov has become close with the similarly-minded Luzhkov. Indeed, Katanandov has sought to increase Karelia’s self-reliance (read: independence from federal control) by expanding ties with Moscow. Katanandov recently hosted Luzhkov in Karelia and the Moscow Boss repaid the favor by hosting Katanandov in the capital for The Days of Karelia, held on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Kalevala epic.

The rationale behind this friendship is mainly economic: Karelia badly needs outside investment. Luzhkov, in turn, is well aware of Karelia’s natural wealth and geographic proximity to the West. But this is not to say the friendship is totally free of political motivations. If Luzhkov becomes the next president of Russia, he would likely not forget about his friend from the North.

But Katanandov is wise enough not to put all his eggs in Luzhkov’s basket. He openly sided with President Yeltsin in the recent impeachment battle. This may be healthy pragmatism (in the face of a strong anti-Yeltsin Left in the region): the Kremlin is quick to turn off the funds if a region becomes too maverick. But there may be another reason for this, one not insignificant in the highly-personal politics of Russia: Boris Yeltsin is a regular vacationer in Karelia. If Soviet history is any guide, this could greatly influence Katanandov’s national career. Some years ago, Soviet leaders were fond of taking the waters in a southern resort region, where they were hosted by an ambitious local leader named Mikhail Gorbachev.

Needless to say, as the 2000 presidential race heats up, Katanandov’s walk on the political tightrope between the feuding Yeltsin and Luzhkov could become tricky indeed. But then Karelians are used to balancing between competing empires.

Fashionable and fit, the 44 year old Katanandov is equally comfortable hobnobbing in high-society or talking with voters on a call-in radio program. But there are some rough edges. A recent interview with Katanandov’s predecessor, Viktor Stepanov, was pulled from publication in the pro-governmental newspaper Karelia. In the interview, by Anatoly Tsygankov, Stepanov admitted that Katanandov’s team was more energetic, yet he likened Katanandov’s managerial style to that of a “construction superintendent,” hinting at his previous profession. The article also criticized Katanandov’s staffing policies, accusing him of “witch hunt”—i.e. massive firings of Stepanov era staff. In fact, the article was censored not by Katanandov, but by the head of his press service, Tamara Kolesova. After an outcry by local journalists Katanandov fired Kolesova and allowed the interview to be published.

Katanandov is learning and listening, burnishing the rough edges, honing his pragmatism. In his 1998 campaign he said he doesn’t like women who are “too smart,” and he vacationed abroad with a local business leader. Today he is more cautious and circumspect. He quickly fired his Education Minister when it became known that he had compromised himself. He travels frequently to remote districts of the republic and has taken a “tough” stance on the mafia (a local contract killing of a vodka distillery head recently made national headlines). He has also promised to rid Karelian forests of lumber poachers, so as to protect a vital source of the republican budget. Finally, he has successfully avoided Yeltsin-esque tensions between the region’s executive and the legislative branches.

Katanandov has three more years in his tenure, three more years to prove his mettle and build his power base. Reforms continue, albeit at a moderate pace, greatly influenced by the scale of outside investment and the whims of federal leaders. And greatly influenced by Katanandov’s character—and that of Karelia’s people more generally—pragmatism with a healthy dose of self-reliance.

Karelia’s Gold

Most of Karelia is a hilly plain, covered with emerald green forests and over 60,000 lakes and 27,000 rivers—25% of Karelia is covered by water. The climate varies from maritime to continental. Western and southwestern winds carry warm air from the Atlantic, softening the continental character of the climate and increasing average temperatures (-12˚C in winter and 16-19˚C in summer). Daylight in the South lasts 19-20 hours during the summer period of White Nights; in the North it last 24 hours.

Some 50% of Karelia is covered by forests, what locals call “green gold.” The wood processing, cellulose and lumber industries are some of the most influential in Karelian economic life, and are very significant for Russia as a whole. Every third newspaper in Russia is printed on Karelian-made paper.

But Karelia’s natural wealth goes far beyond wood. Karelia is rich in scarce ores such as chromium, titanium, molybdenum, vanadium and uranium. 46% of Russia’s feldspar reserves are located in Karelia. Industrial minerals such as talcum, quartzite, quartz and super-pure quartz also abound. And geologists have discovered rich deposits of diamonds and platinum. At present, however, the local mining industry is geared mostly towards iron ore (concentrated at the ore-enriching plant in Kostomuksha, which is the largest enterprise in the republic) and gold extraction; aluminum and steel processing , and machine building at the huge paper machinery making plant outside Petrozavodsk, are leading industries.

So, with all this natural wealth, how is it that Karelia has not become a Northern Kuwait? There are several reasons, said Karelian Legislative Assembly Deputy Alexander Lukin, ticking off everything from legislative discontinuity to Soviet-wrought passivity. But he finally settles on taxes, which, he said,  “reach the level of absurdity.”

“Our tax policy is turning away potential investors,” Lukin said. “So, it would be naive to expect positive changes in the economic situation without a serious improvement in local legislation.”

Lukin cites the example of the Russian-American joint venture Pegas, involved in wood processing. Created four years ago on the site of the unprofitable Petrozavodsk Forest Cutting Sovkhoz, the enterprise employed state-of-the-art technology, created jobs and had ecologically clean production. But then the tax inspectorate bogged the joint venture down in audits for eight months—audits based on claims which Karelian legal experts later proved to be absurd.

“Poor laws should be blamed not only on the idiosyncrasies of local bureaucrats,” Lukin said, “but also on the ‘good’ old principle of centrally-planned management: ‘We know better in Moscow,’ which unfortunately prevails up to today. Today we are trying to reverse the situation. But it is not that easy when the people of the old generation control the oil and gas and all the money.”

A new generation of Karelian politicians truly interested in reforms is rising up. And the investment and legal climate in Karelia is also starting to change for the better. Legal protections for private ownership will allow individuals or corporations to seek material compensation for damages, be they from a tax inspector or an individual. Experts from the local section of the Yabloko party are working to amend the Karelian Constitution to be in line with the Federal Constitution, so as to make the Legislative Assembly more efficient and eventually increase lawmakers’ responsibilities to the voters. Which, of course, Kuwait has little measure of ...

EcoKarelia

Karelia’s remoteness, its rich forests and extensive waterways give it an elevated status in Western Russia as an ecologically clean zone for tourism—an invaluable quality when ecological disasters are plaguing Russia from East to West. Which is not to say Karelia is free of pollution. By no means. Several regions—notably in and around the capital, around Kondapoga, Belomorsk and Kostomuksha—suffer from the effects of overindustrialization and the effluents of paper production, metallurgical processing and mechanized forestry. But all things are relative. And Karelia, by many standards, is a very clean corner of Russia.

Maria Krutovskaya, the senior expert on tourism at the Republican Committee on Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the government considers the development of tourism to be “a top priority,” and therefore intends to create a favorable regime for tourism. Indeed, the republic, located so close to Europe, would seem ideally situated to take advantage of the current hot trend in international travel: ecotourism. Yet the republic lacks modern hotels and transportation, and it does not have a modern international airport. While it has pristine national parks (see story, page 31) and zapovedniks, access to them is difficult and federal support almost non-existent.

These make for serious barriers to the influx of foreign tourists. But Russians are nonplussed. Hunting, fishing, berry and mushroom picking is so attractive in Karelia (especially in these economically-stressed times, when travel abroad has become less feasible), that Russians from other regions come to Karelia every summer to replenish their food reserves and enjoy the nature. Karelia’s 56 travel agencies served about 250,000 guests last year.

Aside from sheer natural beauty, Karelia, rich in culture, also offers some unique tourist venues. On the shores of Lake Onega there are rock pictures 6,000 years old. Kizhi island (see story, page 37) offers a picturesque collection of incomparable wood architecture (so much so that, in 1990, the island was included in the UNESCO list world heritage sites). The Valaam archipelago is part of the living history of Byzantine culture. Solovetsky Monastery, on the island of the same name, was the site of an important early Orthodox outpost and, more recently, Soviet Russia’s first political prison (see Russian Life, July 1996). There are the stunning landscapes of Lake Onega and the White Sea cost, the nature reserves near Kivach waterfall and the Paanajarvi and Vodlozero national parks. And there are numerous springs with reputed healing properties, including Russia’s first health resort, Martsialnye Vody (“Martial Waters”), founded by Peter the Great 280 years ago. And of course, not far from Martsialnye Vody is Shuyskaya Chupa, where Russia’s modern tsar, Boris Yeltsin, spends his summer vacations.

Three hundred years after Peter the Great made his expansionist foray into Karelia, the quiet northern republic has lost none of its strategic importance for the Russian state. But it has gained something new. With all of its unblemished natural wonders and undeveloped natural riches, and despite some real ecological problems, Karelia stands as an island of opportunity. Surrounded by a country and a world increasingly destructive of its environment, Karelia has an opportunity to prove that a different course works, one that emphasizes preservation of the natural environment, self-reliance, and a pragmatic approach to economic development.  RL

Galina Skvortsova is head of the features department of the journal Sever (The North). She has written five books of prose and is the chairperson of “Maria,” the Association of Female Writers of Northwestern Russia. She lives in Petrozavodsk.