Evacuated to the East

In the middle of July we had our kitchen reconstructed so we went to our cottage in the eastern Finland. We made some trips from there, including a visit to Karelian Pasty festival (“Piiroofestivaalit) in Ilomantsi, the most eastern parish in Finland. The Karelian pasty is a small pie made of rye pastry and with filling made of rice, barley or potato. It is delicious and very popular and I think the most original version of it is made in regions round Ilomantsi with the strongest Karelian orthodox cultural influences. We had an opportunity to make our own pastys and naturally to eat them, as well. There are some other traditional pasty variants such as sultsina (a kind of tortilla mad of rye pastry), tsupukka and vatruska (containing potato cover around the rice filling). We tasted also the new innovations like tsupukka with wild boar filling and sultsina with chanterelle filling.  We ate some pastys also at our cottage so it might have been the reason I gained two extra kilos…

                                              On my way to Piiroofestivaali         

                                             In front of the "Kalevala Poem Singer's House"

   Making the pastry                                               Ready for the owen!!

   So delicious....!!                Greeting the calf of the original Eastern Finnish cow "kyyttö"

The weather was not very warm or sunny so I took sun bath in my bikini only once. When we swam while sauna-bathing we naturally wore no clothes.

We also visited Savonlinna opera festival and saw Boris Godunov, Matti Salminen as Boris. Salminen is already 70 years old but his voice is still full of power and expression. Compared to average Boris he avoided exaggerating expression, partly to reserve his powers, of course. The performance took place in Olavinlinna castle 

From Savonlinna we traveled to Kuopio.  We choose our route through lakes and islands of Northern Saimaa region, the home of Saimaa lake ringed seals. The islands with small hills are filled with forests and very often the road joins the rocky coast line. In some places there were little ferries called “lossi” instead of bridges.  

                                        On the ferry from an island to another

                                                  By the Kermankoski rapid

In Kuopio we had a boat trip on the Kallavesi lake. I have lived in Kuopio but my spouse had never done it there. We saw a new suburb built in the archipelago. I remember the same region when it was a total unbuilt wilderness.   

                                                   In the Kauppakatu street in Kuopio

In Kuopio we had a message that our kitchen reconstruction was ready, so it was time to go back home. On our way we still met my friend Tiina in Joroinen and had a nice chat with her.