Paanajärvi Village

Kemi Province, Russia
14th century--Present
In its earliest days, Paanajärvi was a trading post between Vikings and the people of Byzantium. More recently, it was one of the villages from which material for the Karelian-Finnish epic Kalevala was gathered in the early 1800s. For decades, little was known of the village's wooden architecture or its oral folk traditions, which have endured because Paanajarvi was inside the Soviet's "closed zone." After the collapse of the Soviet Union, international scholars rediscovered the village. During an aggressive agricultural expansion program in the 1960s in which the Soviets leveled many regional villages, Paanajärvi was spared because plans had already been set for a dam across the Viena Kemi River. Economic crises in Russia stalled the project, which if completed would have resulted in the flooding of the village. Listed since 1996 as endangered by this project, Paanajärvi still survives intact. A new company, however, plans to proceed with the power plant and so the threat looms again. The site warrants international attention. In the meantime, restoration of the wooden buildings has begun, with local carpenters trained for the work, partial funding for which has come from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Listed in 1996 | 1998