Description of the attraction
Suojärvi district was the site of battles during the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars. Fierce battles took place on the heights of Kollasjärvi. Now it is the site of the Kollasjärvi military memorial complex, located 30 kilometers from Suojärvi on the way to the village of Loimola.
The area near Loimola (Lake Kollasjärvi region) became the object of hostilities. Three times, bloody battles unfolded in this place: in the winter of 1939 - 1940, in the summer of 1941 during the offensive of the German-Finnish troops and in June 1944 during the operation of the Soviet troops to liberate Karelia. These places are witnesses of the steadfast courage of the Soviet and Finnish troops, who fought to the death and were not inferior to each other in the strength of the onslaught and resistance. The Soviet and Finnish defenses erected in the area of Lake Kollasjärvi are significant in size.
Today, only part of the traces of those battles remain: trenches, trenches, bunkers, dugouts, dugouts. Evidence of fierce battles of opponents - many graves and their signs. On the territory there are, according to some data, 15 burials, where the ashes of the dead Finnish and Soviet soldiers rest, according to others, up to 60 burials. Some of them are complex burials, consisting of several graves (military mass graves).
The formation of this complex began in 1942. On the initiative of the Finnish Forestry Authority, it was decided to open access to the memorial sites of the "Winter Battle". Among them was Kollasjärvi, on the heights of which stubborn battles were fought.
In the pristine and harsh landscape, there are deep trenches where soldiers took shelter from bullets; dots - from where they fired at the enemy; ditches - blocking the way for tanks. The remains of these structures vividly recreate the fierce battles of that time.
Finnish, German and Russian soldiers found their final refuge on the Karelian land. Now there are memorial signs in different languages. There is a place for flowers nearby and you can light a candle. A special commission in the course of the work carried out the reburial of Finnish soldiers and installed a sign of memory of the fallen soldiers - the 18-meter Koll cross, nicknamed the "Mannerheim Cross".
Kollasjärvi is a sacred place for Finns today. Loimola is visited by former combatants and relatives of the fallen soldiers of Finland on Kolla. Combat actions are recreated today in battle scenes by war history lovers and members of military history clubs. Having been at such a performance, you involuntarily plunge into the atmosphere of those years and start looking at the course of the war differently. Communication with war veterans gives an extraordinary experience.
Local search teams are active in finding the remains of dead soldiers and burying them, collecting wartime evidence and archival materials.
The Karelian Frontiers History Festival is held annually in March and is a good tradition of residents of the republic and guests from abroad. Every year, a lot of people come to see the reenactment of the battles of the Winter War.
Nowadays, the results of many years of work by search engines and researchers are available to both residents of Russia and foreign guests. The fraternal union established contacts of the fighting soldiers in Finland. Loimola youth are involved in the work of the search team. All finds of the detachment are kept in the school museum. It is planned to create a museum exposition of the finds of the volunteers of the Loimola search detachment.
The entire territory of the Complex occupies 3, 1 thousand hectares, and in order to preserve the natural landscape in its vicinity, a protected environment zone has been created, which includes lands of historical and cultural significance. A number of activities are planned and implemented to ensure comfortable visits to the historical sites of Loimola by tourists. One of them is to ensure the safety of the battlefield. Also, to ensure visits to the Complex with organized excursions, bus stops are being arranged, paths for pedestrians are cleared and laid, as well as bridges across the river and trenches.
Information support is also important - direction signs to objects of inspection, direction signs for pedestrians, information boards and a terrain diagram with the location of historical military structures on them. The complex, as an object of the history of war, needs scientific support, and the historical objects of war that form it, require reconstruction and improvement.
