Savonmailla - A Journey To The Bygones

I had some difficulties to decide

how to write this story.

And I'm still struggling to

find the right words to describe

the feelings I'm going through.

After a long time

I made a road trip to Savo.

This beautiful lake side paradise of Finland,

where I had spend almost two decades of my life.

Experiencing the growing pains of

the late childhood and beginning of the adulthood.

Visiting there has always

made me feel little bit uneasy,

but the company of my friends 

has made it always more easy.

This time though,

the power of already

forgotten emotions

took me as a surprise.

I was truly exited about the trip.

I made travel plans,

reading the maps

and finding information

about cool nature locations.

My plan was to drive smaller roads

and stop by at interesting and new places.

In reality,

I was tired from driving,

darkness was falling down way too quickly,

car was nice and warm,

the road was still long ahead of me

and I would have liked to be there already.

The more South I drove,

the more uneasy I felt.

The old darkness was creeping

at the corners of my mind.

Bravely I push it away.

I decided it doesn't concern me today.

On the way South I stopped at

 Orinoron rotko canyon.

The place has been sacred

and mythical place in the bygone times.

The original name of the place

has been Orkonoro,

which means something like

"a deep rift which has water or spring at the bottom".

So basically it means "a wet crack".

orko: notkelma, alho, jyrkkä-äyräinen syvänne

noro: vetinen notkelma, pieni puro

Later,

somewhere in 1900s,

the name has changed to Orinoro.

(Stallion's watery canyon or wet crack)

The tale has it,

that there would have been

two stallion fighting each other

and one or two of them

would have been fallen into the canyon.

Or then there would have been

a Russian general,

whom would have fallen into the canyon

with his stallion.

Any case there has been a stallion involved.

Probably. Most likely.

Even though it was interesting

to read about the etymology of the place

and the canyon was beautiful

with the tall rock walls,

I didn't get as much out of the visit,

as I had hoped.

From the parking place

were 1 km walk to the canyon.

The path was about 2 metres wide

and there was yellow trail marks painted

in every other tree on the way,

so getting lost on the way to the canyon

would had been impossible task,

even if one would have tried really hard.

The whole canyon bottom had been

covered with wooden path.

Which I get it,

is important for protecting

the environment from the visitors,

but which gives the place

really touristic vibe.

And you could easily see

the result of visitors

taking side steps from the path,

as there was no mosh or anything growing

where people had walked.

Just brown dead soil.

As I'm standing in the bottom of the canyon,

watching the smooth rock walls

rising both side of me.

I try to feel the place,

to have something,

even faint glimpse

of something.

I get a feeling,

that the real Orkonoro

has been wear out.

That if there is still something there,

it has been hidden so deep,

that no human can access to it.

And this is how nature is protecting it self.

At these kind of popular sites,

I can't help thinking where goes

the right balance?

It is truly important,

that we all can get to the nature,

for our own well being

and as there is so many of us,

it is impossible to always go somewhere

were no one else has been.

I leave the canyon

whispering silent apologies

for being one of the many.

Next five days

I would spend at my old hoods.

The weather was grey and rainy,

but we did try to make our best going outdoors.

I made a day trip with my girls

to Tervolankirkko (Tervola Church).

And no,

I'm not talking about

those two Christian churches

in the Tervola village,

which where build in 1680s and 1860s.

I'm talking about

the one of the biggest boulders

in the whole Finland.

I found only little information

about the place.

There was one side mention,

that the place would have been

a church of elf at the bygone days.

And this might be true.

Usually this kind of mythical places

were sacred.

And it was believed,

that elf and spirits lived there.

Common believing has also been,

that these kind of huge rock formations

are build by ancient giants (Jatuli, Jotunn),

whom lived here before us.

I mean,

how else would huge boulder

end up in the middle of a forest,

far away from other rocks?

In any case,

the place was huge!

There was cracks and caves

and huge boulders leaning to each other.

Originally there has been

just one so huge boulder,

that I can't even picture

that big boulder in my mind.

And with erosion and time passing,

it has been shattered into smaller pieces,

which are still huge by the way.

First thing we see,

when arriving to the boulder,

is a fire place with benches

in the largest peak cave.

It looks kinda cozy

and nice place for a picnic.

The place is about 100 meter

from the dirt road

and it is listed on the public

nature sites website,

so it wasn't surprise

there has been a lot of visitors here too.

Here the atmosphere

is warm and welcoming.

The church is inviting us

to play and climb in it's halls.

Unfortunately due the rain,

the rocks are super slippery

and we need to move around really carefully.

I couldn't climb all the way to the top,

as I would have wanted,

but I climbed as high as it felt safe.

The church was a maze.

When we just thought,

we had seen the place,

would we find a new

crack or cave.

And suddenly we were back

there where we had been

a half a hour ago.

And no idea how that happened.

For the few hours

we spend at the church,

I totally forgot to think

about the feeling of uneasiness,

which had been growing day by day.

But the last morning changed everything.

The darkness

I had pushed away from my mind,

found it's way to my consciousness

and forced me to look straight at it.

The darkness and distress

of my mind had turned

into a physical feelings.

There I was

alone,

shaking and crying,

feeling how the old darkness,

which I thought I had already left behind me,

billowed over me.

In my mind I knew,

this was an old feeling,

echoes from the past

and it didn't have any reason to be

here and now.

I'm truly grateful for my friends,

whom were there then

and were there now.

After shared cup of coffee

and some hugs,

I was ready for the last adventure

before starting my journey towards North.

We headed to

one of the many

Pirunkikko (Devil's Church)

named places at Saimaa lake area.

And I can tell you,

there is many of them there.

I had read about

this Pirunkirkko,

which has a big cave

and it is located near the water.

The Saimaa seals has habit to visit the cave

and hanging out in there,

they have been making sounds,

that for people

has sounded like the Devil itself

would have been ranting there.

So naturally the locals have

stayed the hell away from there.

Sense knowing the story,

I have been wanting to visit the place.

Afterwards it turned out,

we visited a wrong Pirunkirkko.

Of course we did.

Back home I checked the book

and turned out that the right Pirunkirkko

was on a island in the middle of lake Saimaa.

But, I didn't know this

back when we were there

and anyhow,

this Pirunkirkko was also

super awesome place.

And there was caves too.

The place we visited was

Vahtivuoren Pirunkirkko

(Devil's Church of the Watch Mountain)

I managed to find some old article about the place.

According to the article,

it was believed,

that the imps held services in the cave.

The article said,

the crack cave is located

at the foot of the cliff

and  has been formed,

when the vertical cracks in the rock

has been opening.

And when the lake water

is at normal level,

there is one meter of water in the cave.

We did find two caves.

The bigger cave had little water on the bottom

of the lowest chambers,

but fortunately most of the cave was dry.

I spend a long time in there.

The cave turned out to be huge,

not that you could stand there,

but it was more like

a maze of small chambers

connected to each other.

There was also so many

branches with beaver's biting marks,

that I was expecting

an angry beaver

attacking me any time

from one of those dark chambers.

The whole Pirunkirkko

was consisting smaller and higher

cliffs rising from the lake.

It might have been

really beautiful see the cliffs

from the lake.

It took us some time

to find a doable way down

and to the caves.

By the narrow shore,

between the cliff and the lake,

it looked like the beavers

had been biting

little bit from all of the trees.

So we made sure

not to steady our self

by leaning on to the trees.

By the shore we found also

a cool stone pillar.

It was standing high and tall,

but the root of it

was crumbling into our hands.

It is highly possible,

the stone pillar won't

see many winters

before it dives into the lake.

The smaller cave I visited,

was super weird place.

It was just by the water

and there was so much bird poop,

that I had difficulties to breath

because of the stinking smell.

But the oddest thing

was the shine under the water

at the dark end of the cave.

It looked like

it would be sunny and bright,

warm summer day

on the other side of the cave.

When I came out of the cave,

it was still snowing

and the sun had started to set

and the light was dim.

This made me feel like,

the cave could have been

a gate to somewhere else.

Somewhere with a different weather.

To a parallel universe.

I would have been definitely

discovering the gate more closely,

maybe even try to go through it,

if it wouldn't have been for the smell

that made me escape from the cave too soon.

On the long way home,

I stopped to spend some fun and loving

moments with my friends.

And especially after this crazy year

and avoiding everything,

it felt good and important

to laugh, hug and dance.

To live.

During the several hours in the car,

as the darkness out side thickened,

the darkness in my mind

turned into a faint shadows

to the edges of my consciousness.

I felt tired,

but fortunate for being able to

find these feelings,

whom wanted to be seen,

inside of me.

And for been able to accept their existence.