Karelian Isthmus Research Articles

Stone Age archaeological sites and environmental changes during the Holocene in the NW region of Russia

Abstract The region of NW Russia connecting with the Baltic Sea presents a dynamic ecological system that was sensitive to environmental changes during the Holocene. Certain factors affected environmental changes in the region during the Holocene: deglaciation processes, that finally terminated about 9 cal ka BP; eustatic sea-level changes; and tectonic movements, which are basically considered in the region as isostatic uplift processes. Contextual remains of ancient human occupation sites can be the only evidence of surface stabilization in monotonous sediments, such as aquatic and subaquatic deposits. Prehistoric settlements also mark ancient shorelines. The latter is of great importance for studying the history of water oscillations and coastal-line displacements on the territory of NW Russia. The transgressive–regressive stages of the Baltic Sea (at c. 10.15 cal ka BP, the Ancylus transgression; at c. 7.6–7.0 cal ka BP, the Littorina transgression) have an impact on the positions of prehistorical sites. The complex investigations of the Stone Age archaeological settlements on the Karelian Isthmus and in the Dvina–Lovat’ basin, and their altitudes below sea level, allowed us to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental changes during the Holocene, the chronology of cultural–historical processes and the adaptation strategy of ancient people to environmental conditions in this territory.

Hydrographic network of northern part of the Karelian Isthmus in Holocene according to sediments of the small lakes

Recent palaeolomnological studies of the small lakes sediments in the northern Karelian Isthmus have demonstrated that the start of organic (gyttja) sedimentation in the Holocene was not simultaneous due to the differences in 1) the lake's elevation, and 2) the proximity to Lake Ladoga shoreline. Organic sedimentation in the lakes located at30 ma.s.l. and higher started around 11000 cal. BP. No major changes in their hydrological conditions have been recorded hereafter. In the lowland lakes (11-20 ma.s.l.) located in the proximity of the Lake Ladoga shoreline the start of organic sedimentation has been dated to 3000-4000 cal. BP. The underlying clayey gyttja contains lower amount of organic matter (ca 10 %) and the diatom assemblages dominated by the “large-lake” diatoms typical for Lake Ladoga. Therefore, the rapid increase in organic content in the lake sediments points at the isolation from Lake Ladoga, and enables to date the termination of the Ladoga transgression to 3000-4000 cal. BP. In the lakes situated at 11-14 ma.s.l. near the present watershed between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, gyttja accumulation commenced at 3000-4000 cal. BP. Here the organic sediments overlie unsorted sand and silt that contain “large-lake” diatom taxa. Such sedimentary succession indicates that high-energy sedimentary environments (strait or river-like outlet from Lake Ladoga) persisted in the northern Karelian Isthmus until at least 4000 cal. BP when low-energy environments established resulted from Lake Ladoga regression. Hence, the small-lakes sedimentary records provide an independent evidence for the Lake Ladoga – Baltic Sea connection through the main Ladoga outlet in the north of the Karelian Isthmus in the mid-Holocene.

Paleoseismodeformations of hard rocks in the Karelian isthmus

Within the limits of the Fennoscandian (Baltic) crystalline shield, late and postglacial shattering of hard rocks due to strong ancient seismic effects has been studied at several sites [1–5]. The approach of these studies implied the search for evidence of a seis� mic origin of dislocations and, in some cases, determi� nation of the dislocation age. These studies have also been carried out by the authors in southern Karelia and northern Leningrad oblast. The present work is devoted to elaboration of criteria and distinguishing of several coeval events, and to parameterization of these events in terms of seismology standards. This commu� nication presents the first, basic part of such a study. The source parameters were defined on the basis of models and calculations from the initial values of dis� placements for each of the distinguished events. The remarkable shattering of hard rocks in the out� crops near Krasnyi Sokol settlement, northern Kare� lian Isthmus (Leningrad oblast, near the town of Kamennogorsk), had been noticed as early as the 19th century by the famous geologist A.A. Inostrantsev. Since then, this site, which is unique in the expressive� ness of fresh ruptured structures, had not been investi� gated. In 2010–2012, it was studied in detail by the authors and was named “Inostrantsev’s cave” [6]. The site is located within the limits of the NE wing of the large Vuoksa fault zone [7] bearing recent signs of acti� vation. Owing to intensive longitudinal and transverse fracturing of the hard rock massif, the inner structure and shattering conditions were able to be studied down to 5–7 m depth. Here, a complex of seismotectonic dislocations with displacements and deformations of various character is developed in the hard rocks; in the framing, seismogravitational structures are found. Importantly, both these types are closely coupled and correlate with each other. The present work will con� sider only the dislocation in the hard rock massif proper. A significant feature is the clear predominance of signs of horizontal displacements in the two mutu� ally perpendicular directions at the nearly horizontal basis of the shattered part of the massif. The Vuoksa fault zone, which is marked by the river system of the same name, is represented by a system of

In search for fingerprints of an extraterrestrial event: Trace element characteristics of sediments from the lake Medvedevskoye (Karelian Isthmus, Russia)

Concentration and distribution of trace elements across the sequence of the Late Pleistocene sed� iments from the lake Medvedevskoye suggest the addition of materials other than those from a common source for the lake sediments of the region. The sediments of the lake Medvedevskoye carry some geochem� ical fingerprints which could be related the ET event that occurred at ca. 12.9 ka. Because such fingerprints are extremely subtle, the NW Russia can be considered to be the most remote eastern region of the extent of the Late Pleistocene airborne ET material. The sediments of the lake Medvedevskoye can also contain vol� canic material from the eruption of the Laacher See (Germany) volcano and probably from other Late Pleis� tocene volcanoes of Western Europe and/or Iceland.

Pilke, Helena. Korsu-Uutisia! Rintamalehtien Jatkosota (review)

REVIEWS 567 would be a better version of Tsarism: a geopolitical stable empire that was orderly, modern, law respecting, ethnically tolerant, and nonarbitrary in its manner of rule’ (p. 185). Jeremy Smith makes very modest claims of providing a ‘starting-point’ (p. xiv) for the student and general reader interested in a broad overview of the nationalities experience in the Soviet and post-Soviet period. Indeed this is an excellent summary of mainly English-language research. The guiding policies of the period and how they played out amongst the nationalities are described and analysed with clarity and brevity. It is an achievement to capture complexity and to render it understandable. Teachers and students will be most grateful. The author is clear about issues that remain unsettled in his own mind and this gives a sense of the topic as a lived experience for the researcher as well as in the past. This is most evident in the discussion of the complex and much debated Ukrainian famine (pp. xv, 107–11). Above all, we gain a clear appreciation of the contradictions between and within certain periods that contained massive hurt as well as some gains. Inevitably, in a work that applies a ‘broad brush’ there will be disagreements with the text or frustration that more historiographical information was not provided. I would have appreciated, for example, a little more on how historians have dissected the Terror and explained its various aspects (p. 119, n 30). In the light of recent events, I wanted to know more about ‘strains with the Russian population’ when Crimea was incorporated into Ukraine (p. 161). Later, Smith puts this initiative down to the RSFSR Council of Ministers over which Khrushchev had ‘little influence’ (p. 194), but surely a change of such magnitude had to have some input from the First Secretary? These are, however, minor quibbles. Starting from very different methodologies, one sociological and theoretical, the other historical and narrative, both these books inform and challenge our appreciation of what makes our area of study so difficult: to incorporate the nationalities and the national dimension. School of English and History Ian D. Thatcher University of Ulster, Coleraine Pilke, Helena. Korsu-Uutisia! Rintamalehtien Jatkosota. Historiallisia Tutkimuksia, 260. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Helsinki, 2012. 357 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Appendices. Index. €39.00. During the Second World War, the Finns, in what they call the Winter War (30 November 1939–13 March 1940), lost the Karelian Isthmus and a bit more territory up north. The Russians took these lands. In what the Finns call the SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 568 Continuation War (25 June 1941–4 September 1944), they tried to get the lost lands back — and a lot more. They didn’t succeed. After this, they lived for decades on the good graces of the Russians, enforced till 1992 by a treaty. Helena Pilke’s text is mainly concerned with the spirit of the Finnish armed forces in the Continuation War. This she finds expressed in a study of the changing moods of the troops as reflected in the front-line gazettes. There were over ten of these journals. One, entitled Tappara (‘Battle-Axe’), ran to a print of 15,000. This was topped by Karjalan Viesti, which had a print-run of 30,000. In short, these news-sheets were popular and some of them even recounted the battles in Asia. After all, it was a world war that was going on. The people who ran these presses belonged to an outfit known as the TK (tiedotuskomppania) which was headed by Kalle Lehmus, a Social Democrat who was accountable to Mannerheim. Some of the members of the TK were distinguished intellectuals — men like Olavi Paavolainen and Yrjö Jylhä. But those who have previously written about the outfit — and now Helena Pilke — have noted that the TK were not regarded with much esteem by the front-liners. Perhaps this was because, as Pilke suggests, the TK-men were not exactly fighters. But they were good organizers. Lehmus had spent two months in Germany to learn his craft. Reading the extracts from the front-line press takes one back to a strange world. The talk is that of...

Sorption-diffusion model of 137Cs uptake by a water body bottom in estimations of water contamination

For a sample including 22 lakes, the 137Cs concentrations in water were determined by the sorption-diffusion model. The 137Cs levels in waters of lakes of the Kola Peninsula and Karelian Isthmus are satisfactorily described by the suggested model at the distribution coefficient K d of 4000 L kg−1 and diffusion coefficient D of 1.0 × 10−7 cm2 s−1 for 2–4-year exposure. For mid-latitude lakes, the ranges of K d and D of 137Cs were 6000–1200 L kg−1 and 1.0 × 10−7–0.2 × 10−7 cm2 s−1, respectively. The 137Cs concentration in water is determined by the major contribution of silts, which are characterized by high K d of 137Cs and by large thickness of sediments on the bottom of lake hollows, to the watter-bottom sorption system. After 2-year exposure of “Chernobyl” 137Cs in lakes, its inventory in water relative to the amount that fell out in 1986 did not exceed 14% for deep lakes and 2–3.6% for shallow lakes.

Assessment of sustainable forest management criteria using indicators of the international programme ICP forests

This article gives an assessment of the international criteria for the sustainable management of forests on the basis of indicators according to the International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests). The given program allows us to assess Criterion 2: Maintenance of Forest Health and Vitality and Criterion 4: Conservation and Improvement of the Biological Diversity of the Forest Ecosystem. The informative indicators of Criterion 2 are the degrees of the tree crown defoliation and the composition parameters of atmospheric deposition, soils, and dominant tree plant photosynthetic organs. The assessment of Criterion 4 is carried out on the basis of biodiversity items, including forest distribution by age and species composition, sets of forest community major groups (groups of forest types) and their quantitative representation in the area, number of tree and shrub species found in the forests, and species richness and species saturation. An attempt has been made to show whether the network of the permanent observation posts reflects in full measure the forest typological and age structure in Karelia and Karelian Isthmus.

Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two (review)

SEER, 91, 4, OCTOBER 2013 918 marching through Finland, through Petsamo (Pechenga). Hitler’s concerns with this part of the world, as Lunde brings out well enough, comprised a great deal: possession of nickel for the German armaments industry, fear of British landings on the northern shore, and cutting the Murmansk railway and capturing its ports so as to prevent aid to the Soviet Union from outside. The Germans were intent on marching and some sort of assistance was undoubtedly to be required from the Finns. A cynic might say that the Finns might have supplied the Germans with better maps since they never got to Murmansk. Curiously, there had been a small German naval detachment stationed near there on the Litsa river in the happier days of Nazi-Soviet cooperation. Did they not make maps? And General Talvela himself ought to have had some knowledge of the terrain from previous parallel experiences with his bus company in Finnish Lapland. True enough, the Finns were under the spell of the German Blitzkrieg in Western Europe. But this apart, the horny fact of political geography, called Petsamo in Finnish, was there. That is why, at the time of the peace made at Moscow in 1940, J. K. Paasikivi had wanted the area to be given to the Russians. Having had to get into war, Finland’s participation in the Continuation War was fraught with contradiction. It was limited because the country did not want its troops to attack Leningrad (Talvela did). The Finnish forces also soon desisted in their attempts to cut the Murmansk railway. Finnish policy was, however, expansive in intent. It did not stay at getting back the lost lands. Ryti dreamt of the Kola Peninsula and of seeing a Leningrad conquered by the Germans turned into a trading depot. Mannerheim wanted East Karelia, and as Lunde says, in 1944 kept troops there who might have been better employed defending the Soviet onslaught coming up through the Karelian Isthmus. There is a fog of war that may even envelop the bits and pieces of a Blitzkrieg. University of Turku George Maude Ramet, Sabrina P. and Listhaug, Ola (eds). Serbia and the Serbs in World War Two. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2011. xvii + 324 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Glossary. Notes. Further reading. Indexes. £65.00. SabrinaRametandOlaListhaug’sSerbiaandtheSerbsinWorldWarTwoaims to reassess the experience of Serbs and Serbia under Nazi occupation as well as critique recent revisionist interpretations of Milan Nedić’s collaborationist administration and Draža Mihailović’s Chetniks. The book is divided into four sections: the first considers occupied Serbia and Vojvodina; the second looks at the fate of the Jews and the conduct of the Orthodox Church; the third examines the Partisans and the Chetniks while the fourth focuses on contemporary historiographical debates. One of the volume’s central REVIEWS 919 hypotheses is that the intensity of debates in contemporary Serbia about the Second World War and attempts at ‘sweeping historical revisionism’ make Serbia ‘a unique case in contemporary Europe’ (pp. 1, 285). A number of essays provide important new insights into life in Serbia under Occupation. Given the lack of serious English-language studies on the subject, that alone makes the volume welcome. Some of the essays are very well written: particularly good is Jovan Byford’s chapter on the destruction of the Jews. Admirably balanced, it constructs a complex picture of Serbian collaborationist involvement in the Holocaust. In so doing, Byford effectively challenges historical narratives that absolve the Nedić regime of all responsibility for the destruction of the Jews while rejecting counter-arguments that aim to draw a moral and functional equivalence with Ante Pavelić’s Ustasha regime. Similar comments apply to his diverting biography of the controversial bishop of Žiča, Nikolaj Velimirović. Sabine Rutar’s study of the social politics of forced labour is enlightening and her call for a non-ideological multilayered historiographical approach to the subject is well taken. Likewise, Olga Manojlović Pintar’s often-interesting discussion of cultural politics and ideology under Nedić is insightful, not least because it highlights the ways in which Nedić’s Serbia was both similar to and differed from other states in occupied Europe. In her study...

First finding of Baikalian amphipod Micruropus possolskii Sowinsky, 1915 (Amphipoda, Crustacea) in Lake Ladoga

For the first time, the Baikalian amphipod species Micruropus possolskii Sowinsky, 1915 was recorded in the Shchuchiy Bay of Lake Ladoga in August 2012. The species was probably accidentally introduced into lakes of the Karelian Isthmus during intentional introduction of the another Baikalian amphipod species Gmelinoides fasciatus (Stebbing, 1899). Later M. possolskii penetrated into Lake Ladoga via different waterways connecting the lakes. The period of M. possolskii penetration into the lake is unknown. It is suggested that the species can spread in the littoral of Lake Ladoga, but mass development of the species is hardly probable.

A Sense of Terijoki: The Discourse of Karelia in the Karelian Borderlands

Abstract Karelia, the borderland between Finland and Russia, has been a “land of quarrels” for centuries. The Swedish kingdom, the Novgorod realm, and the Russian Empire, one after another, have colonized the area. In 1812 the southwest part of Karelia, the Karelian Isthmus, was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. This incorporation was practical: for hundreds of years the area had already been a region of Finnish-speaking people. After Finland's declaration of independence (1917) and civil war (1918) and the birth of Soviet Russia (1917), political tensions sharpened in the Karelian Isthmus. In those days, the borderline between Finnish Terijoki and Russian St. Petersburg became the most important ideological barrier between revolutionary Russia and Finland, where the right-wing Whites had won the civil war and begun an unequalled campaign against the Bolshevist power. In 1939 and again in 1944, Soviet troops occupied the Karelian Isthmus, and the area ever since has been a part of the Soviet Union/Russia.

Homes across the Border: Russian Summer Houses in the Karelian Isthmus and the Finnish State, 1917–1927

At the end of the 19th century, numerous St. Petersburg residents established their summer homes in the Karelian Isthmus, a picturesque region in the Grand Duchy of Finland, an autonomous province of the Russian Empire. The ease of travel between the Russian imperial capital and the Finnish seaside towns contributed to this practice. After 1917, a new border regime delineated the nascent Finnish state from the equally new Russian/Soviet state. This change displaced the majority of Russian proprietors, as well as those imperial subjects who rented vacation properties from local Finns. This article addresses how state-building practices distinguishing between insiders' and outsiders' access to rights and privileges reflected the significance of territorial borders as markers of a state's territorial sovereignty. It does so by investigating how Finnish–Russian social ties affected the Finnish government's management of real estate owned or used by subjects of the former Russian Empire. Using archival material from the Administrative Organ for Property of Foreign Owners in Viipuri Province (Finland), this article examines how property settlements decisions had unintended consequences when officials attempted to balance state and individual interests. These decisions in turn challenged the primacy of the territorial border as an institution that separates insiders from outsiders.

Chironomidae of semiaquatic lake shore habitats in the Karelian Isthmus (northwestern Russia)

Shores of lentic waters are poorly studied as habitats of Chironomidae. We investigated floating shore marsh surrounding the lakes Bol’shoe Rakovoe (Äyräpäänjärvi or Eteläjärvi) and Okhotnich’e (Muolaanlampi), shallow mesotrophic wetlands in the Karelian Isthmus. Our research aimed to identify species structure of immature chironomid assemblages in this peculiar habitat and to provide their quantitative assessment. Five sites of the water margin zone (a 20-m part of floating marsh adjoining the lake littoral) were studied using two techniques, quantitative samples taken with a grab-net and laboratory rearings of adults from substrata. Thirty-two samples were taken in July and October; 2970 emerging chironomid adults were identified. Nineteen species were found, 3 of Tanypodinae, 10 of Orthocladiinae and 6 of Chironominae. Tavastia yggdrasilia, Thienemanniella minuscula and Polypedilum trigonus are first recorded from Russia, and 8 more species, from NW Russia. Orthocladiinae accounted for over 99% emerging adults, with 3 species predominant and numerous on all sites, Paraphaenocladius impensus, Limnophyes minimus and L. natalensis. Species structure is discussed and compared with the data on similar habitats. Chironomid larvae were most numerous macroinvertebrates. Mean abundance of chironomid immatures varied from 1246 to 32060 ind./m2, mean biomass, 0.104 to 3.591 g(wet weight)/m2, depending on site and season. In July, Chironomidae comprised 3-15% of Diptera biomass and 1-5% of macroinvertebrates biomass; in October, 13-49% and 7-20%, respectively.doi: 10.5324/fn.v31i0.1410.Published online: 17 October 2012.

“The good, the bad, the weird”: Stone Age and Early Metal Period radiocarbon dates and chronology from the Karelian Isthmus, North-West Russia

In this paper all the Stone Age and Early Metal Period (ca. 8600 cal BC — 300 AD) radiocarbon dates from the Karelian Isthmus, Russia, are compiled and their archaeological usability assessed using a set of evaluation principles. The quality of radiometric dates from such a large area has rarely been methodologically examined in Finnish or North-West Russian archaeology, and is applied here for the first time on the present material. Special attention is given to the discussion on the deficiencies and limitations of the current data. Based on the 81 dates evaluated as useful, a tentative radiocarbon chronology is presented for the study area. This is generally in sequence with the chronologies of the nearby areas, but suggests some differences especially towards the end of Stone Age, as well as the presence of biases caused by taphonomic and research-related factors.

Biografiskt lexikon för Finland: Republiken, 3: A-L., 4: M-Ö by Henrik Knif, et al.

Reviewed by: Biografiskt lexikon för Finland: Republiken, 3: A-L., 4: M-Ö by Henrik Knif, et al. George C. Schoolfield Henrik Knif, et al. Biografiskt lexikon för Finland: Republiken, 3: A-L., 4: M-Ö. Helsingfors: SLF, Stockholm: Atlantis, 2011. Pp. 922-1911. The great project is now at an end. Biografiskt lexikon för Finland 1: Svenska tiden of this biographical handbook (in Finland's other language) was reviewed in Scandinavian Studies (2009; 81.2), Biografiskt lexikon för Finland 2: Ryska tiden in Scandinavian Studies (2010; 82.4). The concluding pair covers figures falling largely within the almost a century of Finland's independence (from December 6, 1917). Finnish-speakers now predominate; many of their entries, translated, have been taken over from the nine volumes (6,000 entries) of Suomen kansallisbiografia (2003-2007), hereafter Sk, as well as entries on those Suecophones who found their way into that monumental set. About one hundred new entries, by and large Finland-Swedes, have been added—from the physician Herman Adlercreutz (a name forever prominent in Finland's annals!) to Hugo Österman, son of a Helsingfors police constable and commander of the heroic force on the Karelian Isthmus during the Winter War, having replaced the Fennomaniacal Aarne Sihvo. The demarcation lines can be a little bewildering: Sophie Mannerheim (1863-1928), the legendary nurse, landed in Biografiskt lexikon för Finland 2, her brother Carl Gustaf (1867-1951) is front-and-center in volume 4. The author of both articles (Sk, BlF) on the Marshal is the bilingual Matti Klinge, Sk's general editor and himself a veritable Mannerheim of scholarship. The browser finds himself devising all sorts of illusory (if not crazy) genethlialogical schemes. The 1860s produced not only titans, Sibelius (BlF 2) and Mannerheim, but presidents of the new republic, Ståhlberg (BlF 2) and Svinhufvud (BlF 4). The 1870s were rich in births of architects in spe, Sigurd Frosterus, Eliel Saarinen, Lars Sonck, Gustaf Strengell, and still another president, Kyösti Kallio, who fell dying into Mannerheim's arms outside the Helsingfors railroad station on December 19, 1940. The 1890s flowered with original genius that would attain international [End Page 517] attention, the architect Alvar Aalto, Elmer Diktonius, Edith Södergran. (The nation's most widely read author, Tove Jansson, would not come along until 1914.) Fast-forwarding to the 1900s, one finds a cluster of musical names, Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952), known to American concert audiences (willing or not) for her electronic music; Barbara Helsingius (b. 1957), songstress, composer, and Olympic fencer; and Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958). (Speaking of music: where is Tom Krause [b. 1934], the bass-baritone surely worthy of ranking with Kim Borg [1919-2000] and Jorma Hynninen [b. 1941], both taken over from Sk?) Karita Mattila (b. 1960)—an American household word, thanks to the Met's manager Peter Gelb—is the baby of the musical lot. Movies? The brothers Kaurismäki (1955, 1957) are here, and the editors have rightly slipped in the great pioneer of Swedish film, Mauritz Stiller (1883-1928), "Mosche Stiller" from Helsingfors's semi-ghetto, separated by some pages from his great and good friend, Alma Söderhjelm (1870-1949), Finland's first female professor and younger sister to Werner Söderhjelm (1859-1931), BlF 2, prodigious scholar and Finland's first ambassador to Sweden. The net is cast wide. Alphabetically next-door neighbors are Nazi Germany's war-time ambassador in Finland, Wipert von Blücher (1883-1963) and the leader of Finland's Jewish community, Scholem Bolotowsky (1922-2002): a non-commissioned officer in the Continuation War, he must have bumped into his German co-belligerents on the Karelian front. BlF does not shy away from sensation: see the take-over from Sk of Minna Craucher (1891-1932), "petty criminal" and "political intriger," murdered—evidently for squealing on the proto-Nazi Lapo Movement—in her apartment beside sedate Mechelingatan, an event whose literary and cinematographic reflections are listed in enticing detail. Eyolf Georg Matts-son—from a well-to-do Åland family, alleged bank-robber, brigade-chief in the Red Army, and survivor of forced labor in Kazakstan's coal-mines and Siberia's work...

Tourism and political change in Northern European borderlands: the Karelian Isthmus, c. 1870–1940

The Karelian Isthmus is a historical border region between Finland and Russia/Soviet Union, not far from St. Petersburg. The main attractions were the Imatra rapids, the sunny beaches of Terijoki and the medieval city of Viipuri. This article analyses the role of political change in tourism development. Tourism actually began after the railway construction from Helsinki to St. Petersburg in the 1870s. After the Russian empire collapsed in 1917, Finland became independent, borders were tightly closed and tension continued between Finland and the expanding Soviet Union until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Before 1917 tens of thousands of tourists had yearly arrived from St. Petersburg to the isthmus for holidays, but from 1917 to 1940 most tourists were Finns in their own country, plus a small number of Western tourists. After the Soviets annexed the isthmus in the Second World War, the clientele and tourism structures were reformulated: the isthmus became a minor element in the Soviet tourism organisation, while the Imatra Falls remained a part of Finland. It seems that in the case of the Karelian Isthmus and tourism, politics was the prime mover, and the role of tourism was to adapt to the changing circumstances.

Distribution of the Siberian flying squirrel (Pteromys volans L.) in taiga isthmuses between Baltic and White Sea regions

We focused our attention on three narrow isthmuses between the White and the Baltic Seas, which form important connections for the elements of northern taiga ecosystems, such as the Siberian flying squirrel. The method that we employed is based on the search of flying squirrel’s excrements on randomly selected 9 ha plots (more than 11700 plots studied in Russia and in Finland). Relative abundances of the flying squirrel in Russian Karelia and the Karelian Isthmus seem to be slightly higher than in Finland. The border of the flying squirrel’s range in the North-West could be delineated from the national park Kalevalski, across the Segezha region to the southern part of the White Sea, and further to the east. We suppose that the connection between flying squirrel populations of Scandinavia and Russia is mainly implemented through a narrow ‘middle-taiga corridor’, i.e. the isthmus between Ladoga and Onega Lakes, and only partly by the isthmus between Lake Onega and the White Sea.

Records of land use and medieval settlement history in Vuonninen, Dvina Karelia, Northwest Russia

AbstractAlthough the documented history of Dvina Karelia (northern Russian Karelia) does not begin until the second half of the 16th century, individual finds of prehistoric artifacts point to earlier human occupation. The present paleoecological study of the Vuonninen area is the first of its kind concerning prehistoric land use in Dvina Karelia, a large region extending from Finland to the White Sea. It is based on the pollen analysis of sediments from Lake Ylä‐Kuittijärvi near the old Karelian village of Vuonninen. In its general features, the picture of the early stages of cultivation and human activity in the village of Vuonninen is comparable to results from East Finland, the Karelian Isthmus, and the northern shores of Lake Ladoga. The first, minor indications of human influence appear in the sediments of the 4th–6th centuries A.D. in Lake Kuittijärvi. Distinct and unambiguous signs of human activity appear in the pollen record in the 12th century. This is particularly evident in the decreasing proportion of Picea, caused by the clearance of spruce forest. The beginning of cultivation is dated according to Secale pollen to the beginning of the 15th century. Intensive arable farming emerges in the early 19th century in the form of regular occurrences of Secale and Hordeum pollen. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Biological diversity and the community structure of organisms

Biological diversity and the complexity of the community structure of benthic animals in different bodies of water are evaluated using the Shannon index. The literature data on the communities in Lake Krasnoye (Karelian Isthmus, Leningrad Oblast), Shchuchy Bay of Lake Ladoga, Neva Bay, and the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland have been analyzed. The extrema (maxima and minima) and the inflection point of the curve of functions are determined with the help of derivatives. The rate of the secondary succession is evaluated for the first time by the example of benthic communities. It is shown that the community structure of bottom animals in the Shchuchy Bay ecosystem formed in the process of succession proves to be more complex than in Lake Krasnoye and the Neva Bay communities that have been formed for a long time. Communities of bottom animals are less complex in polluted waters of the top of the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland. It has taken 12 years to reach the maximum diversity of the bottom animal communities in Shchuchy Bay, 16 years in Lake Krasnoye, and 7–10 years in Neva Bay. It is supposed that, under favorable conditions in the waterbodies of a moderate climate and in the absence of heavy pollution or eutrophication, it takes 12–14 years on average to form the most complex community structure of bottom animals (3–4 bit/spec.). The structure of communities in polluted waters remains simple.

A deep borehole in the East European platform margin: Petrologic and isotopic-geochronologic data

The petrologic and isotopic-geochronologic study of basement rocks that were penetrated by a deep borehole in the marginal part of the East European Platform revealed that its section overlain by the Vendian-Paleozoic sedimentary cover is Early Proterozoic in age and largely consists of aluminous migmatized biotite, biotite-cordierite, and biotite-cordierite-sillimanite gneisses, which are intruded by granites, plagiogranites, and metatonalites. The lower part of the section is dominated by amphibole schists and amphibolites with subordinate nonmetamorphosed dolerite dikes and pegmatite veins. By metamorphism parameters (T = 630–680°C, P = 2–4 kbar), the metamorphic complex may be considered as the shallowest one, compared with other Early Proterozoic complexes, developed at least in the southwestern part of Fennoscandia. The progressive decrease in the mineral-formation pressure observed in the Lower Proterozoic metamorphic rocks southward, away from the Karelian Craton is likely explained by the tectonic transport (thrusting) of the Svecofennides over the margin of the Karelian Craton and their subsequent deeper erosion near the craton. The magmatic crystallization of metamorphic palgiogranites, penetrated at depths of 925–928 and 1004 m, is estimated by the U-Pb ID-TIMS method on zircons to occur 1860 ± 9 Ma ago. It is shown that by their age, the REE composition, and isotopic-geochemical characteristics, these rocks are close to the plagiogranites formed in the southeastern extremity of the Svecofennnian belt in the present-day northern Ladoga region and the Karelian Isthmus. No rocks, which could be correlated by their lithology with the Archean rocks of the Karelian Craton, are found.

High mitochondrial DNA sequence diversity in the parthenogenetic earthworm Dendrobaena octaedra

Apomictic parthenogens are clonal organisms with limited genetic opportunity for increasing diversity beyond mutation. However, such species can be successful and have been shown to harbor more genetic diversity than might be expected. Here we surveyed diversity of the cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene from the mitochondrial genome of the earthworm Dendrobaena octaedra, an apomictic parthenogen. Diversity estimates made previously from allozyme markers for this species were high, but could have been affected by a detection bias, namely variable expression of alleles in the polyploid genome. We found similarly high mtDNA diversity over three localities in Finland, each represented by two sites; either with or without anthropogenic soil metal contamination. A single haplotype was most common over all sites, and over two thirds of all haplotypes sampled were similar to it in sequence (only varying by 1-3 substitutions). However, more divergent rare haplotypes were also found in one locality, Imatra, in southeast Finland close to the Karelian Isthmus. Metal contamination in the soil did not have a significant effect on genetic diversity, although metal exposure is known to be detrimental to the worms. There was no evidence for cryptic species within D. octaedra and phylogenetic analyses showed some structure of lineages that may have diverged in historical glacial refugia. Other mechanisms, such as rare genetic exchange with closely related species or high mutation and dispersal rates may explain high genetic diversity in D. octaedra.