Index Archaeology Maintenance Maintained Sites Kärnäkoski, Savitaipale

Kärnäkoski, Savitaipale

18th century fortress

The Kärnäkoski fortress is located in idyllic surroundings in the southern Lake Saimaa region. It forms a part of the Kärnäkoski and Partakoski Fortresses Culture Historical Landscape and Scenic Area, which has been designated a nationally important site by the National Board of Antiquities and the Ministry of the Environment. The fortress belongs to the chain of fortifications erected in southeastern Finland by Russian general A. Suvorov in 1791–1793.

Fortress history

General Suvorov concluded that the road leading into southwestern Finland from the north was best secured by a fortification built on the isthmus between Lake Kuolimojärvi and the southwestern shore of Lake Saimaa, at the mouth of the Kärnäjoki River. The main fortress was erected at the northern mouth of the river while the southern end was guarded by a small separate redoubt, the “Mountain Stronghold”. Work at the site began in the summer of 1791 and the fortifications were ready in 1793. The work force consisted of more than 1000 Russians, and a large number of labourers died from exhaustion and disease during the two years of construction work.

The fortress served as a base for the Russian Lake Saimaa Naval Flotilla. General Suvorov built the Kärnäkoski fortifications to defend Russia against the Swedes, but they never witnessed any military action between these parties. Some 100 years later, during the Finnish Civil War, several battles took place in the area. The Reds tried to attack Mikkeli via Kärnäkoski but could not get through, while the Whites – coming the other way – tried to take Savitaipale but were likewise repulsed.

The plan of the fortress is asymmetric and consists in part of series of tenailles and bastions. The ramparts have been strengthened with a facing of stone. The fortress is surrounded by stone walls a few metres high and up to 10 metres thick, erected by Suvorov. The fortress formerly contained a barracks, a house for the officers, a guardroom, a lockup, and a powder house. All that now remains of these buildings are the foundations.

The fortress lost its strategic value in the beginning of the 19th century when the land border between Sweden and Russia moved to Lapland. When the fortress was abandoned, the Russian garrison auctioned off everything that did not have to do with weapons. This took place ca. 1835, when Czar Nicholas I ordered the decommissioning all fortresses in southeastern Finland that had no strategic military value.

The fortress today

A survey of the vegetation at the site was carried out in 1987. Maintenance work commenced in 1988, when the fortress area was mown, the trees growing along the shore path to the Mountain Stronghold thinned out, and sapling growth in the Mountain Stronghold cut down. A sheep fence was also erected.

Since 1989, some six months’ worth of maintenance work on the actual fortress walls and postern passages has been carried out at the site every summer. The Mountain Stronghold, with an area of some 5.4 hectares (ca. 13.3 acres), became the property of the National Board of Antiquities in 1994 and forms part of the maintained area. Yearly maintenance of the Mountain Stronghold has consisted in clearing away new brush growth. The restoration of the walls, carried out over a period of several years, was finally finished in 1997. Maintenance has been ideally carried out during the summer, either by having sheep graze the area or by mowing and cutting.