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Little Known Natural Treasures Finland is a land of thousands of lakes; in Kouvola, there are 450 of them. The city centre with its high-rises and residential areas may be the only thing railway passengers in transit see through train windows. That is one landscape of Kouvola, but most of the city is green. Not many Finns know that Kouvola is Finland’s seventh-largest summer cottage municipality, with around 7,700 cottages. When Anjalankoski, Elimäki, Jaala, Kouvola, Kuusankoski and Valkeala were consolidated into Kouvola, it created a city of almost 90,000 inhabitants, almost the size of the Northern Kymenlaakso region. The trip from the centre of Helsinki to Kouvola takes one hour and 18 minutes on a Pendolino train. Contrary to common belief, Kouvola isn’t behind Kuopio, and it isn’t the same thing as Kokkola, which are both nice cities, but far away, at least from the capital region. 3
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The Kymi River winds through the forests and fields of Kouvola and makes a grand appearance in the centre of Kuusankoski. The rugged Ahvionkoski rapids make up one of the river’s most beautiful spots. In the currents of the rapids you can catch zander, freshwater asp, and rainbow trout. You might even catch salmon, sea trout or grayling.
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The Repovesi National Park is one of Southern Finland’s most popular nature tourism sites. Around 80,000 hikers visit the park every year, so you may not always find complete solitude on the trails. Wanderers in Repovesi may hear Russian, Japanese, French and many other languages in addition to the red-throated diver’s call.
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The most famous locations in Repovesi are the Lapinsalmi suspension bridge and the tower on the hill of Mustalammi, which offers a panorama of the entire national park. Olhavanvuori is a familiar place for rock climbers. Through the summer, you can see climbers on dozens of routes up the vertical wall – only the most enthusiastic ones keep climbing in the winter. 8
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The Jokelanjoki River, which drains into Lake Lappalanj채rvi, is a slice of the very best Valkeala. For hundreds of years, there has been a mill in Jokela, sometimes two. One was taken by a flood, another by fire. The present-day flour mill has been standing by beautiful rapids since 1848. On the opposite shore, you can find a horizontal kettle hole. 11
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Arboretum Mustila is Finland’s oldest and largest arboretum, established by Honorary Counsellor of State A. F. Tigerstedt. Domestic and foreign trees have been grown in its research forests since 1902. The Douglas firs on the southern slope now rise above the other trees, greeting people arriving along Highway 6. Around 100 evergreen species and 200 broad-leaved species as well as hundreds of bushes and perennials grow in Mustila. Its sections Tuijalaakso (Thuja Valley), Hemlokkimetsä (Hemlock Forest), Japani (Japan) and Amerikka (America) take you on a nature trail over many continents. In late spring and early summer, the blossoming azaleas and rhododendrons attract crowds of visitors to the park. 15
FUN AND JOY
Author Samuel Johnson once said, amidst his depression, that if you get fed up with London, you get fed up with life. Does the same apply to Kouvola? Does the city have everything life can offer? Well, not much is missing. Visitors can see this most clearly. The Tykkim채ki amusement park is like a miniature model of Kouvola: close to nature, child-friendly, modern and nostalgic. It carries parents back to their childhood with familiar rides brought from Linnanm채ki in Helsinki: the Enterprise, Calypso, and Kouvola-wheel, which was called the Helsinki-wheel in its former home. Kouvola lacks only two things: the sea and traffic jams. 16
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The most famous rides of Tykkim채ki are Taifun and Star Flyer, which lift their passengers high above the pine trees. The park offers rides for those with the need for speed, but also lots of rides suitable for toddlers. There is a camping site and the new Aquapark in connection with the amusement park. For adults, Tykkim채ki is also familiar for its summer concerts. 18
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Green Kouvola has many “lungs”, but only one heart, the pedestrian street Manski, which is the stage of many events. Fashion Night was invented in Kouvola in 2003, and soon the phenomenon spread to other cities as well. It is like the Night of the Arts – which is also celebrated in Kouvola – but the events take place in the clothing shops in the city centre. There are fashion shows and presentations by fashion gurus. Magic Days and Detective Story Days bring mystery lovers and detective story enthusiasts to the city in the summer. 21
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The Kymi River will run out of water before Kouvola runs out of music. In addition to rock bars, there are other live music bars in the city. In the fall, MILjazz, a concert given by military bands, fills the Kasarminm채ki Park with jazz-loving picnic groups.
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Festivals held in Kouvola include the Pioneerifestivaali, Huhdasfest and the Wastelandfest. The interdisciplinary and free-of-charge Wastelandfest covers the hillsides of Kasarminmäki with musicians, actors and fine artists giving summer performances. The atmosphere is shabby and comfortable, anarchistic and relaxed. If you enjoy London’s Camden Town, you will like the Wastelandfest. Instead of the suburbs of Islington, this event is in the forest and on a field. 24
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Kymi Sinfonietta gives concerts at the Kouvola city hall and Kuusankoskitalo. The orchestra has hosted famous visiting soloists and conductors as well as promising young talents. It has also been invited to perform, for example, in St. Petersburg, London, and Helsinki. Many young musicians are trained at the North Kymi Music Institute which arranges operas regularly.
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A line of buses in front of the Kouvola Theatre is a familiar sight in the evening. The theatre is known for its singing actors and musicals, which attract audiences from around the region and even farther. The Mik채? (What?) Theatre also operates in Kouvola. There are other amateur theatres in Kuusankoski, Utti and Myllykoski. Summer theatres pop up amidst the beautiful nature. 28
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Kuulas is an International Children’s Theatre Festival held in the spring, and its main venue is the Kuusankoskitalo. It features theatre groups from around the world, acrobats, clowns, and street theatre artists performing among the audience. 31
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Kouvola Art Museum Poikilo is the only art museum in Kymenlaakso. Poikilo has featured African, Chinese, European, and Finnish modern art, including paintings, sculptures, video art, spatial art and robots. At the Finnish Shop Museum in Valkeala, you can time-travel to early 20th century general stores and small shops of the 1950s and 1960s. 33
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The medieval event “Verlan aika� has drawn a large audience to Jaala for many years.
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HISTORY Kouvola derived its name from the word “kouvo”, which means a bear. The oldest area is the Kouvola village, which has been populated since the Middle Ages. The first inhabitants of Kouvola included both people and bears – city names are always given for a reason. Kouvo lives on in the name of the city’s basketball team, Kouvot. Because of its location, Kouvola has seen much war during its history. For almost one hundred years, the Kymi River was the border between Russia and Sweden, and many battles were fought around it. Kouvola was the main theatre of war in 1788–1790, when King Gustav III of Sweden fought the Russians, defending his kingdom against the Cossacks. At the end of the Winter War, the Koria bridge, the railway yard and the paper mills by the Kymi River were heavily bombarded by the Soviets. But railway traffic to the front was not cut off, even though fleets of up to 60 airplanes crossed the city’s sky. 37
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Construction of the Riihimäki–Pietari track was begun in the famine years of the 1860s. Unemployed men with their families moved to towns along the track, and new inhabitants arrived in Kouvola. The Kymintehdas factories in Kuusankoski also brought new inhabitants in the 1870s. A railway station was needed for the paper mill. When the Savo track was built north from Kouvola and the Kotka track south, the city became a junction station and home to many railroad workers. Today you can ride the Allegro to St. Petersburg in a little over two hours. 39
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The story of the Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun began at the Central Finland regiment, which moved to Kouvola in the 1920s. At the regiment, arms technician Aimo Lahti started developing the weapon. The barracks of Kasarminm채ki were built during Russian rule in 1914. Nowadays it is a student campus and home of many companies. The modern extension of the campus, Paja, meets the new European standards, and it is meant to last for at least 150 years.
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In the year that Kasarminm채ki was built, a red-brick garrison was also built in Koria. In the Pioneer battalion later stationed at Koria, Captain Eero Kuittinen got the idea of destroying armoured vehicles by fire and experimented with benzene, petrol, waste alcohol and tar. The famous Molotov cocktail was born. The Pioneer monument in the Pioneer Park weighs 65 metric tons. 42
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The buildings of the Elim채ki Local Museum tell the history of Elim채ki in the 1800s. The windmill of the outdoor museum is visible all the way to Highway 6. It originally belonged to the Mustila mansion. The Hero statue designed by Professor Aimo Tukiainen stands at the Elim채ki cemetary. 45
A small ironworks community rose by the Verlankoski rapids between Valkeala and Jaala in the early 1870s. After the first groundwood mill was destroyed in a fire, a new mill was built along with a board mill in 1882. Verla was part of the development which made Kymenlaakso Finland’s most significant wood-processing region. The groundwood and board mills have served as a museum since 1972. In its time, the mill’s headquarters were in the owner-director’s home. Verla was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. 46
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KEEP ON MOVING! Kouvola is not only a culture city, but also a sports city. Kympin Nainen (Women’s Ten) is not only a running event, but also a spring carnival that puts thousands of women on the move. There is hardly a sport that you cannot practise in Kouvola. Archery, tour skating, parachuting, flying, beach volley, church boat rowing, motor sports, horse races, mountain biking, synchronized skating, golf and disc golf are all among the pastimes available in Kouvola. The city also has 292 kilometres of bicycle paths and 110 kilometres of lighted ski tracks. Kouvola also has opportunities for sports fans. The city has national-level teams in many sports and lower-level teams in even more.
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The city’s pesäpallo (Finnish baseball) team KPL plays its home matches in the Urheilupuisto Sports Park and in the KSS Energia Arena next to the skating arena and the central sports field. The national-league basketball games of the Kouvot fill the Mansikka-aho (Strawberry Meadow) stadium with fans. 50
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The light towers of the Mypa Stadium rise from among single-family houses in Myllykoski. Home matches cause traffic chaos in the population centre earlier known for its paper mill. The most famous players originally from Mypa are Jari Litmanen and Sami Hyypi채. The Kouvola Indians play American football in the national Vaahteraliiga (Maple League).
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KooKoo plays its home matches in the biggest ice stadium of the Mestis ice hockey league. Few Mestis teams have a home arena that seats so many fans. KooKoo rose to the national SM Liiga in the 1980s, and has wanted back ever since. You can practise synchronized skating and figure skating in the clubs Kouvolan J채채taiturit and Kouvolan Taitoluistelu. 55
The Mielakka skiing resort is located right by the city centre, one of the city’s landmarks. It has slopes for all levels of downhill skiers. The most famous winter sportsman from Mielakka is Slopestyle and Big Air World Champion Roope Tonteri.
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In the winter, the city of hundreds of lakes offers nature experiences above and under the ice. The Valkealatalo lakeside sauna is popular among winter swimmers. 59
The par73 course of KoskiGolf in Kuusankoski and the 9-track DiscGolfPark in Myllykoski are both located by the Kymi River. The golf centre Bogey is also in Kouvola, and you can find Lampila Golf in Jaala. 60
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In the summer, you can try gravity racing at the Mielakka ski resort, or mountain biking in the forest of Kouvola on the Salpausselk채 Ridge. 62
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The Tykkimäki Motor Sports Centre features a motocross track, a folkrace track, a remotecontrolled car track and a Formula K track. The international World Championship rally cross race RX-Finland takes place annually on Kouvola’s challenging track. 64
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Horse races are held at the Kouvola horse-racing track year-round. The main event, the Kymi Grand Prix in June, offers one of Finland’s largest awards for trotting races. Its speciality is free air transport for horses from Central Europe and Sweden to the Utti airport, so the race always features international top horses.
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ARCHITECTURE There are so many new buildings and so few old ones in the Kouvola city centre that the old ones had to be protected. The museum block is by the railway next to the Kouvola-talo. High-rises rule the city centre. The newest additions are the residential buildings above the Shopping Centre Hansa and Ässätorni by the Urheilupuisto Sports Park. A group of three high-rises stands beside the market square. The Kouvola City Library is also known by the name Lasikantinen laulukirja (Glass-covered Songbook). Old tourist guide books mention it as one of the city’s tourist sights. Close to it is the functional-style City-Teboil. The service station’s beauty is easily missed while filling up your tank or having a coffee and a doughnut. 68
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In peaceful coexistence alongside the city of Kouvola is Kouvostoliitto (~Kouviet Union), the unofficial city dreamed up by a local group of artists. Its citizens can be identified by their green T-shirts and caps brandishing a red star. The Pohjola building is the main representative of “Kouviet Union” architecture. It is considered so ugly that it is actually beautiful. “All kinds of nice things made of concrete,” as the Kouviet Union people well know. 70
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The city hall at the end of the pedestrian street Manski has often been photographed for postcards of Kouvola. The monument used to gleam in marble; now it radiates in granite. The architects, Bertel Saarnio and Juha Leivisk채 may never have known that they actually represented Wow-architecture. Today the old city hall, Tuulensuoja (Shelter from the Wind), is used for celebrations and association meetings. 73
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The Kouvola-talo and Kuusankoskitalo are centres of culture. The Kouvola-talo has 84 corners. It hosts the North Kymi Music Institute and Art Museum Poikilo. Among the facilities in the Kuusankoskitalo are a concert hall and movie theatres. A library was later added to the building.
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The centre of Kuusankoski had a little cosmetic surgery. The new shopping centre, along with its upstairs apartments, fills an entire block. At the same time, the traffic arrangements changed, and the stone walls dominating the roundabouts have aroused much discussion. The national romantic, round-log Kotiseututalo in Kettum채ki was designed by architect Lars Sonck. 77
When talking about architecture, people tend to name churches. The modern central church of the Kouvola parish is shaped like a big box, but there are also traditional churches in Kouvola, such as the red-brick Greek Orthodox Church and the churches of the Valkeala and Jaala parishes. 78
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Alvar Aalto designed Mäntylä, the chief engineer’s house in the milieu of the Inkeroinen paper mill, along with two smaller hillside houses for ordinary engineers. Aalto also designed three white-painted, multi-story, brick buildings, the Tehtaanmäki school and the Karhunkangas single-family residential area. Five semi-detached houses built for the supervisors stand on the bank of the Kymi River with whitewashed walls and low-reaching, red-tile roofs.
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The Moisio mansion in Elimäki originally belonged to the Wrede family. The Empire-style main building was designed by Carl Engel, and it was built in 1820. Nowadays the mansion hosts fancy dinners, and the walls are decorated with changing exhibitions of fine arts. The permanent exhibition features, for example, sculptures by Wäinö Aaltonen. 82
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There is a rare tower bell in the granary of the Anjala mansion. The mansion was the site where the Anjala treaty of alliance was signed to resist the war plans of Gustav III in 1788. Small businesses, artists and art exhibitions have replaced the paper machines of the Kymintehdas factory milieu in Kuusankoski. 84
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LIFE IN A SMALL TOWN “God created the country; man created the city; and the devil created small towns.� If the saying holds true, most of Kouvola was made by God. The work of man can also be seen, and perhaps something was left for the devil to create, too. Kouvola traditions do not include boasting about yourself or your city. Kouvola is a hidden treasure, said a certain dweller of the city. To understand the Kouvola state of mind, take karaoke. The Karaoke Club Kouvola sang the city onto the karaoke world map in August 2007 by its members standing at the microphone for 211 hours, 38 minutes and 4 seconds. But soon the Chinese broke the record by 2 hours and 22 minutes. It felt like bullying, and it sparked a competition between Kouvola and China, and in summer 2008, Kouvola was sung into the Guinness Book of World Records with the result 446 hours, 4 minutes and 5 seconds. 86
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Risto Peltolan Leipomo (Risto Peltola’s Bakery) and Tuomun Luomu (Tuomu’s Organic) represent the Kouvola people’s rye bread know-how at its best. It is quite a coincidence that the two best rye breads in the world are made in Kouvola. The liquorice of Kouvolan Lakritsi isn’t enjoyed only by locals: it is a Nordic export product. Hasun Lihakauppa (Hasu’s Meat Shop) has operated in the Kouvola market hall for 45 years.
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The most significant shrine of karaoke in Kouvola is the restaurant PyÜreä Torppa (Round Croft), or as locals know it, the Mutteri (Screw Nut). If you visit, order their classic dish, the salmon sandwich. It is also being eaten on a music video by the Finnish metal band Viikate (Scythe). The video features people singing karaoke with Elvis and Marilyn listening, as statues in Mutteri. 91
The world’s largest Prisma and Shopping Centre Veturi are popular meeting places in the city. The colossal buildings are separated by our home street Highway 6.
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Much of Kouvola’s paper production has been reduced, but the mills are still important employers. Stora Enso’s mills in Anjalankoski produce paper and cardboard. UPM-Kymmene is investing in the Kymi pulp mill.
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Natural gas and biogas for cars, and balcony glazing for homes around the world. Gasum has a natural gas station in Kouvola, and the balcony glazing giant Lumon started out here. The Regional Government used to operate in Salpakeskus, and now the building is in use by the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment. 96
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Käyrälampi is the centre of beach life in Kouvola, known for its beach volleyball courts. Pyhäjärvi (Holy Lake) in Jaala has great fishing waters. “Jaalas is a noble life, fishing waters on two sides,” the saying goes. 98
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Koivuranta is a residential area by a lake in Valkeala. Around half of Kouvola’s homes are detached houses. 100
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In the summer cottage season, Kouvola’s population grows by 30,000. The biggest cottage areas are at the “Gate to the Finnish Lake District” in Jaala and Valkeala. 103
Youth Centre Anjala offers many kinds of activities for children and young people. At their school camps, kids get to feel what it is like to be a Tarzan of the evergreen forests. 104
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At the Kasarminm채ki Campus of the Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences, people study business, design and media. A unit of the Lappeenranta University of Technology also operates in the area.
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The Kouvola Region Vocational College KSAO offers 40 basic degrees in 7 different fields. If you want to be a helicopter mechanic, welcome to Kouvola! The degree cannot be completed anywhere else in Finland. The newest additions to the training at KSAO are the basic and continuing training of railway professionals.
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Kouvola is Finland’s largest garrison city. The Karelia Brigade in Vekaranjärvi attracts conscripts from around the country. The Utti Jaeger Regiment includes the Helicopter Battalion and the Special Jaeger Battalion, which trains paratroopers.
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Kouvola Impressions © Kirjakaari, Jyväskylä 2014
Photographs
Printing
Johannes Wiehn
Saarijärven Offset Oy, Saarijärvi 2014
Text
Publisher
Jukka Behm
Kirjakaari, www.kirjakaari.fi
Translation
ISBN 978-952-5969-58-0
Aki Myyrä / Molehill Communications
Graphic design Kati Lähdemäki, Kirjakaari
Works of art p. 32
Kouvola Art Museum Poikilo, Esko Tirronen’s memorial exhibition “Ikuisesti muistoissa”
(Forever in our Memory) 17.10.2012–5.1.2014, photo published by permission of
the museum
p. 33
Finland’s Shop Museum, Valkeala, photo published by permission of the museum
p. 40
Pioneer memorial 1966, granite, Koria, designers: work group
Eino Pyry, Erkki Loukola etc., photo published by permission of the city of Kouvola
p. 43
Elimäki hero statue, bronze and granite, Aimo Tukiainen 1952,
photo published by permission of the city of Kouvola
p. 44–45, 66–67
photo of the Verla Mill Museum published by permission of the Verla Mill Museum
p. 72
statue in front of the city hall, From Generation to Generation, steel and aluminium,
Raimo Utriainen 1985, photo published by permission of the city of Kouvola
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