Ähtäri, formerly Ätsäri (Swedish: Etseri) is a Finnish city located in the province of Southern Ostrobothnia. The city has a population of 5,576 and covers an area of 910.88 km², of which 105.05 km² are water bodies. The population density is 6.92 inhabitants / km². Ähtäri's neighboring municipalities are Alajärvi, Alavus, Keuruu, Multia, Saarijärvi, Soini and Virrat. The municipality is also home to the famous Ähtäri Zoo, where two giant pandas were brought in 2018.
Prehistory and the name of Ähtäri
Stone Age
settlements have been found in the Ähtäri area in Lopet and
Akkosaari. Before 2016, there were a total of 95 objects from Ähtäri
in the registers of the National Board of Antiquities;
The
name Ähtäri probably originates between the Stone Age and the
settlement-era settlement. At that time, a small Sámi population
roamed the area, which has a clear impact on the Ähtäri
nomenclature. However, the name of the Great Lake and later the
entire municipality may not be of Sámi origin, although there is a
suitable counterpart in Sodankylä, Ätsärijoki. Consensus on the
origin of the name has not been reached. The intersections have been
seen with the Estonian word ace ‘flower, inflorescence’ (which the
annoyance also reminds of the keeper’s coat of arms) and the Swedish
word ed ‘taival’ (of which edsjö → Etseri). The sound connection has
also been noticed in the quality words grumpy and fierce, a
connection also known from Äetsä. What Ätsäjärvi, Ätsäri has meant,
Ähtäri is originally the name of the water body in any case.
Wilderness period and settlement of Ähtäri
The Ähtäri region had
no permanent settlement before the late Middle Ages. The wilderness
was divided for hunting, fishing and birch burning to peasants from
Satakunta and Häme. They cultivated the land in their homeland
in the summer, but made fishing trips to these wilderness areas in
the winter. The system was dismantled in 1552 by a batch reduction.
After that, the barren Suomenselä also began to become permanent
settlements: in addition to the owners of the forest rights in
Pirkkala, Savoans and, most recently, Ostrobothnians.
The
first mention of settlement in Ähtäri is in the 1589 land inspection
book. Alastaipale was village-like, and there were also settlements
in Peränte, Ouluvesi, Hankavesi and Vehu. The settlers of Ähtäri
were farmers who quickly cleared the arable land into fields.
Instead, tar was burned only for domestic use. The important tar
economy in Southern Ostrobothnia did not strengthen in Ähtäri until
the 19th century.
Ähtäri belonged to the parish of Ruovesi,
founded in 1565. The journey to the church was a long one. The
founding document of our own church dates from 1651. The first
chapel was built on Hankolanmäki, where the current, fourth church
building from 1937 also stands.
At first, the Ähtäri chapel
consisted of only 27 houses. The chapel boundaries were arranged
according to how the church people walked along the waterways.
the time of the Swedish rule
Ähtäri remained very sparsely
populated throughout the time it belonged to Sweden. This was
influenced by repeated roof years and famines during the cold period
of the 1570s, known as the Little Ice Age, the year 1601 remembered
as the Great Straw Year, the 18th century roof years 1633, 1648-50,
1657 and especially 1666-68 (Lauri's frost years). more than a
quarter of a million people and still 1697 (a great year of death).
Instability was also caused by constant warfare. The great power
Sweden invaded Germany once, the Baltic. The Thirty Years' War was
fought from 1618 to 1648. In the Great Northern War, Sweden's
superpower status collapsed.
After Charles XII was defeated
in the Battle of Poltava in 1709. Russia's military operations were
directed at Finland, and Russian danger reached Ostrobothnia. The
occupation period began, great anger. Ähtäri was a remote place out
of reach of significant road connections. After the Battle of
Pälkäne in 1713, when the escape of Swedish troops began, Ähtäri
also showed fleeing soldiers. However, the retaliation also
indirectly affected Ähtäri. To quell the resistance, the Russians
imprisoned almost all the officials. Only one priest, the collector
of Ähtäri, Johannes Collinus, remained in the entire large
congregation.
Ähtäri was also involved in the 1700 second
half of the century wars, but they were not in the place of the very
significant. Instead, the Finnish War of 1808–1809 also directly
affected Ähtäri. The Battle of the Myllymäki War Corps took place in
the municipality on August 20, 1808. The clash of Myllymäki was a
sequel to the Battle of Alavus (August 18). The Russians retreating
from the lower reaches Keuruu via Ähtäri and Myllymäki. The Finnish
department sent after them first accompanied the fugitives in Inha,
at the Nääsi Strait and again in the Myllymäki war ear. Skeletons,
cannonballs and stabs have since been found in the terrain of
Sotakorvi, but no actual excavations have been made in the area. A
sword was found along the Talvitie in Keuruu, which is kept in the
Ähtäri Homeland Museum.
Reforms of the period of autonomy
The large division, which took place in 1776–1822, mainly meant
the creation of new farms in Ähtäri, as the lands of the old farms
had not been fragmented even during the tab division.
The
judges of the new district formed in 1841, Jacob Henrik Gadd, Erik
Gustaf Roschier and Walfrid Emanuel Waldén, have been significant
influencers of Ähtäri's development.
The reform of local
government in 1865 forced the establishment of secular local
government units alongside parishes. In Ähtäri, the establishment of
the municipality was decided on the day of the death in 1867, after
church expenditures, in a municipal meeting led by peasants (Obadias
Tempakka and Heikki Ruha) without major celebrations.
After
the primary school decree issued in 1866, schools were also
established in the countryside: Niemisvesi in 1868 and a municipal
school in the church village in 1883. Myllymäki did not get its own
school until 1892.
The people of Ähtäri had had a district
doctor in Turku since 1754, but due to the long distance, medical
care was practically left to home technicians and folk healers.
After 1819, the doctor was admitted first to Saarijärvi, then to
Kuortane and finally to Alavus. The first own municipal doctor was
hired in 1912.
Population development during self-government
The population of Ähtäri almost quadrupled during the 19th century,
from 748 at the beginning of self-government to close to 3,000. The
increase was due to a high birth rate that clearly exceeded
mortality despite the disease epidemic. Until the beginning of the
1880s, more people moved from Ähtäri than to Ähtäri, but as the
economic structure diversified and especially after the construction
of the railway, more people moved to Ähtäri than from there. At that
time, birch and tar farming came to an end, but forestry brought
money and jobs to the countryside.
The years 1870–1930 were
"a time of great American migration" in Ostrobothnia, when Finns
were invited to fill the labor shortage in North America. The
majority of those who left were young, unmarried men. By 1910, 1,020
immigrants left Ähtäri for America, most of them in the first decade
of the 20th century.
Industrialism
The railway was of
interest to people everywhere, including Ähtäri. In 1872 it seemed
that the transverse track would come to Ähtäri, but the longitudinal
tracks would be drawn to Ilmajoki, where the intersection station
would come. The importance of transport connections was already
understood at that time: in order to speed up the matter, the
peasants handed over land for the construction of the railway free
of charge by decision of the municipal assembly. The alignment of
the Haapamäki – Seinäjoki line was made in 1877–1878 and work began
in 1879. The maximum number of track works was more than a thousand
men. The first train ran from end to end on October 27, 1882. The
average speed was 27 km / h. After the turn of the century, the
rails were replaced with heavier ones, and by 1911 the average speed
was already 50 km / h.
The most important station was
Myllymäki. There were 20 railway workers working there, but the
transport links attracted dozens of trade and service entrepreneurs,
including industry. In 1883, another position was obtained, Etseri
(now Inha). A switch in 1886, Alberg's bill of exchange, was
established at the present center of Ähtäri. It became an actual
railway station, Ostola in 1896.
A characteristic feature of
the municipality of Ähtäri has been relatively strong
industrialization. Ähtäri has the reputation of an ironworks
operator. The first industrial entrepreneurs in the area were Erik
Roschier and Peter Malm, who established a water sawmill in
Vääräkoski, Inhajoki. The sawmill was granted rights on November 23,
1833. A sawmill, mill and workshop were built in the area. A
community was born, which in 1835 was already inhabited by 41
people.
Inha Rautaruukki was established in the area a little
later, only in 1841. Dissatisfied with the operation, Roschier sold
his business rights to Gustav Wasastjerna in 1842. Ruukki used the
locality's own lake ore, which is why the iron produced was of poor
quality. The owners change many times, and sometimes the ingot and
wrought iron workshop came to a complete halt in 1776–1881. When the
railway came in 1883, Ruukki employed only 9 people.
The real
developer of Ruukki was the patron August Nilsson Keirkner
(1856–1917). He started importing iron ore from Sweden and scrap
iron from Finland. A bolt and rivet nail factory was established. A
steam power saw was built to replace the water saw. The community
grew. My own school was built in 1889, and the neo-Gothic cartridge
castle, Pytinki, 1898–99. Ruukki became the property of Fiskars Oy
in 1918.
Other industry grew alongside Ruukki. The railway
was a decisive factor in the establishment of many industrial
companies. Johan Johansson and Kustaa Emil Lönnqvist founded the
Ostola steam sawmill in 1898. It supplied wood to England. There
were also two paper mills in Ähtäri: the Ryötö paper mill (J. A.
Johansson 1896) and the Vääräkoski board mill (G. A. Lönnqvist
1900).
However, the municipality's real industrial and especially trade
center was Myllymäki. There were two tar and turpentine factories
(Hagertin and Myllymäki), an electrical limited company (1912) and a
dozen specialty and retail stores, including a large bakery and two
shoemakers. Several stores were engaged in wholesale (Finnilä, Wiri,
Lassila & Tikanoja, later also Osuuskauppa). Myllymäki also had
street lights and an illuminated ice rink.
The first wave of
tourism in Ähtäri was experienced on both sides of the turn of the
century. Ähtäri was one of the municipalities to which the
representatives of the golden age of Finnish art nationalism went to
seek inspiration and vacation. The artists stayed on farms, mostly
in Peränte, but also partly in Niemisvesi and Ähtärinranta. The
Järnefelt spent their summers in Suihko and Sibelius Jaakkola. In
Jaakkola, Eugen Schauman also practiced pistol shooting at the barn
wall. Peränteen Sarkola remained Hugo Simberg's place of death.
There were also scholarly guests in Ohraniemi, Männikö and
Niemisveden Kauppalä in Ähtärinranta. Wilho Sjöström recorded the
landscapes of Ähtärä, especially in Inha. There was also a major art
collector, Ruukki's patron Keirkner.
Periods of oppression
and civil war
During the period of Finnish self-government, the
development was interrupted by the oppressions of the turn of the
century. The first period of oppression with conscription strikes
was also visible in Ähtäri. The second period of oppression also
left visible traces in the landscape: the reigns that were carried
out in 1916–1917. They were built to support St. Petersburg’s
defense. Three circular fortress chains were made, one of which runs
at Ähtäri.
The fortification project was considerable on a
global scale as well. In Ähtäri alone, it employed hundreds of
builders. The supervisors were officers, the diggers were soldiers
but also civilian workers. Initially, trenches were excavated in the
vicinity of the main passageways, later the excavations were
supplemented by the actual fortification. Traces can still be seen
in many parts of the parish, for example on the chewing track in
Törönmäki and next to the secondary school in Kampinmäki. There are
similar excavations in Peränte, Vääräkoski, Inha, Mekkokallio,
Rämälä, etc. Governments were never used in hostilities. The
revolutions of 1917 in Russia put an end to the fortification
project. The period of oppression ended and Finland gained
independence from Russia in December 1917.
The explosive
situation of independence was also felt in Ähtäri. The industrial
tradition of the keeper was strong. Inha, Myllymäki and Ostola were
working-class villages. Myllymäki came from Edvard Valpas-Hänninen,
a well-known socialist leader, chairman of the SDP and a journalist.
He owned a property inhabited by his father in Myllymäki. The SDP
also had its own MP from Ähtär, baker Emanuel Pohjaväre. In
accordance with the We Require program, Inha had already moved to an
eight-hour working day with his own strike. 13.11. the general
strike sought the same throughout the country.
An important
special feature of Ähtäri, however, is that, despite the apparent
vigilance of the labor movement, the local trade unions did not
unite with the rebels when they came to power in the party. This
could have been Valpas-Hänninen's influence - his own actions were
against the revolution.
The founding meeting of the patronage
was held at Tuomarniemi Forest Guard School on September 17, 1917.
The patronage was also established in Myllymäki. However, the
secretary of Ähtäri's Defense Forces, Arvid Borg from Tuomarniemi,
played a key role in Ähtäri's events. When the Ostrobothnians began
to disarm the Russians who had become foreigners on January 28,
1918, the whites of Ähtäri considered the 40 Russians still in the
fortifications to be their enemies. In Ähtäri, the Reds did not take
over the railways. Inha Ruukki had a factory protection card
(November 4, 1917), but it remained inactive. The Defense Forces
received the means to deport the Russians by rail and also deported
a number of the most ardent people of Ähtär (January 30, 1918).
At the beginning of the war, attention was focused on the
Haapamäki section of track. Although Haapamäki is nearby, there were
no actual military operations in Ähtäri. Tranquility is evident,
among other things, in the fact that in Ähtäri, high 6/7 conscripts
in the Jyväskylä military district took part in the conscription
(cf., for example, in Jyväskylä ½). In other words, the Red Guard
participated in the invitations along with the Conservation Party.
Even those absent were already on the front. There were no rebels in
Ähtäri. Even then, the tension heated up into terrorist acts.
Of the 67 Red Reds executed in Vaasa County, as many as 32 were
nine of them shot at once in the Beetroot massacre. A total of 12
reds were executed on the beet cloth. Only in Keuruu, which was an
actual military area, there were more people executed in the entire
Jyväskylä military district. The events of 1918 seem to have been a
showdown between the people of Ähtär. Only two people from Ähtär
were executed outside Vaasa County. There was no red terror in
Ähtäri. In Heinola, the two sons of the Count of Ähtäri, Karl and
Martti von Pfaler, fell as victims of the terror. This heated up
emotions in Ähtäri, even though the local trade unions had hardly
any part to happen.
Municipal administration at the beginning
of independence
After Finland's independence, the legislators
prepared key, fundamental laws every year: the Crofters Act, the
Working Hours Act, the Tax Act, the new Conscription Act, and the
Alcohol Prohibition Act. Municipal progress was also made: the
municipal hospital was set up in 1919, frightened by the largest
swine flu epidemic in world history, the parish was electrified and
the primary school network was completed (17 school districts).
Ähtäri of the living villages was at its most authentic.
In
1917, the municipal assembly was replaced by a compulsory, elected
municipal council. The preparatory and implementing body was the
municipal board (later the municipal government). In December 1918,
the first elections were held. The bourgeois electoral bloc, typical
of Ähtäri, but very exceptional in Southern Ostrobothnia, won and
held the position of chairman of the council until 1964. The
tradition of the ironworks was reflected in the SDP's good electoral
success. It was the largest party continuously at the beginning of
World War II, and strengthened again during the reconstruction.
In 1921, Niini Hyrkki was elected chairman of the Ähtäri
municipal council, the first female chairman of the municipal
council in Finland. Until the turn of the 21st century, all of
Hyrk's Followers were men.
The people of Ähtär during the war
In the autumn of 1939, Finland prepared for a possible war with
additional rehearsals at the beginning of October. A state of war
with the Soviet Union was declared on 30 November.
Winter War
troops were formed by locality. Accordingly, the Infantry Regiment
of the Battalion II in Infantry Regiment 30 (EK / II / JR30; later
EK / II / JR21) and two machine gun companies of the same regiment
(2nd HQ / II / JR30 and 3rd HQ / III / JR30) may be designated as
the actual Warther Division. . Troops took part in the fighting in
Karelia, especially in Taipaleenjoki. There also fell 70 of the 103
victims of the war.
In the Continuation War, troop divisions
were no longer formed on a municipality-by-municipality basis. Among
other things, the so-called The miserable fate of the brutal company
led to an attempt to divide the men of the same region into
different battalions within the regiment. In the Continuation War,
the Ähtäri residents were stationed in the Infantry Regiment 16 (JR
16), especially in the 3rd Battalion, artillery batteries and
grenade launcher companies. After the resettlements, a large
proportion of the JR 16's warsmen fought in the Infantry Regiment 58
(JR 58), but also in many other divisions. Some of the youngest age
groups also took part in the Lapland War. In the Continuation War,
175 victims of Ähtär were recorded. Again, the stock was the most
destructive front block for the people of Ähtär.
The war
economy was also felt on the home front. We lived in a regulatory
economy and there was a severe shortage of labor. Prisoners of war
were placed on duty in farms. The crisis brought military tasks to
everyone. Air surveillance was needed not only for the protection of
civilian targets but also for the security of the munitions industry
operating in the municipality (ammunition depot, Fiskars, Ryöttö).
At the end of the war, Ähtäri was temporarily occupied by 2,000
evacuees, but in the spring of 1946 there were only 949. When the
new premises were created, the investment areas were further
changed, and thus in the 1950 census, 5.6 per cent of the people of
Ähtäri were migrants, at this stage the largest groups were already
the Jakak people and the people of Snowwater, whose investment area
was named Ähtäri.
Diversification of service structure
Throughout independence, Ähtäri has been heavily built on new
services, but a particularly strong change in service structure
shook Ähtäri during the wars and reconstruction. The first of these
was the establishment of Ammunition Depot 8 in Inha. Activities
began as early as the Winter War. After the wars, the depot system
was changed to meet the needs of peacekeepers, and the Inha armory
became a central depot (later Asevarikko 7, Ähtäri Armory and
further Ähtäri Depot). The rapid return to peacetime strength caused
haste in the depot. At most, more than 400 people worked hard in
building the depot, cataloging and storing the material, but the
normal strength of the depot has also been 75–150 employees.
Another wartime time was the construction of a nursing home
during the truce on Kaijanniemi on the shores of Ouluvesi.
Immediately after the end of the war, plans were also made to build
their own college. A private support association was founded in
February 1945, and already in the same autumn studies began at two
grade levels. My own school building was completed in 1950.
The following year, a new municipal building was commissioned, and
strong structural development continued in the 1960s: in 1962,
Ähtäri Vocational School began operations, and when the new
vocational school building was completed (1965), excavations began
for the next major project, Ähtäri Regional Hospital. In both
projects, the tenacious hard work of Mayor Väinö Jaakola benefited
Ähtäri. There would have been other takers for the vocational school
and regional hospital in the surrounding municipalities.
However, Jaakola's real royal idea was the idea of Ähtäri tourism
in the late 1960s. The goal was to stop the population decline and
create new jobs in Ähtäri. In the first phase, the municipality
wanted a restaurant, then a camping site and finally the idea of a
deer garden, which later expanded into an entire zoo and eventually
a tourist area. Ähtäri Zoo started its operation on June 17, 1973.
Thanks to Hotelli Mesikämmenen, Mini-Suomi (Santer's Adventure
Country) and many private tourism entrepreneurs, tourism has
expanded to create almost 200 year-round jobs in Ähtäri (1999).
At the same time, a second wave of industrialization took place
in the municipality: the largest industrial employers in the late
20th century created new jobs in the 1970s - at the same time as the
welfare sector expanded in the hospital, health center, primary
school and tourism in Ähtäri.
Municipal life after the wars
The good success of the SDP continued in municipal politics until
the 1950s. However, non-socialist parties have had a majority in
Ähtäri Municipal Council, with the exception of two breaks. In 1945,
SKDL became the third largest party, accompanied by Paasikivi's
speech, and until 1948 Ähtäri was on the left. For the second time,
a meager socialist majority came in the 1964 election for one term.
The mayor was first elected in 1961. Väinö Jaakola was elected,
and he enjoyed his position until his retirement. 1983 Hannu
Marttala was elected to succeed Jaakola and 1992 Lea Tolonen.
With the exception of the mid-1960s, the flow of the party field
has taken from left to right throughout the post-war period. The
reason is the change in the economic structure described above.
Since 1951, the largest single party has been the Agrarian Union,
now the Center Party. Other bourgeois parties, such as the Coalition
Party, have also increased their support since the 1970s, reflecting
the diversification of the business community and the strengthening
of the service sectors. The strong heterogeneity of the party field,
which differs from Southern Ostrobothnia, has consistently been
typical of Ähtäri. One political group has never had a majority in
municipal politics. Even small political movements have been
successful in Ähtäri. IKL, Liberal Progress Party and LKP, SMP,
TPSL, Christian, Green Movement and the new party of the 21st
century Basic Finns. all have in turn quickly been represented in
the municipal council.
In the early 1960s, a bleak future was
predicted for Ähtäri. At the turn of the millennium, the migration
loss population would be home to 6,000 to 6,500 inhabitants. The
prediction was not as erroneous as it sounds. Without the growth
impetus given by the hospital, vocational school and travel company,
the prophecy of defeat would have come true. Ähtäri became a city in
1986. At the turn of the millennium, Ähtäri had a population of
7,300 - a thousand less than in 1960, but about the same as in 1980.