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In 1877-1930, more than 250,000 emigrants of Finlands 400 000 emigrants, mostly emigrating to America, left through the port of Hanko. Their last contact with their homeland were the rays of the Russarö lighthouse. The author Zacharias Topelius was so impressed with the lighthouse that he wrote a poem to it, after which the lighthouse began to be called the Eye of Hanko. Here are its words, translated by AI:
Hanko peninsula Eye
Who are you the merciful star, so far away at sea
your rays in the night in the stormy you throw?
At times you are bright and at times foggy,
and sometimes the fog completely gives you cover.
Are you a star of the sky, with whose eyes the gentlest
gazes and warns of dangers of the night
and you comfort the misguided?
I am not the star of the sky, the tower of fire of the night, but
lighthouse on the coast of Hankoniemi;
I lead the sailor when the day leaves the earth
and dangers lurk on the stealthy cliffs.
In the dark, bright tap with my light varies,
And the sailor sees it and rejoices:
“It might be Hankoniemi's eye.”
An angry storm will wash away my roots forever,
Bueven the strong ones won't win.
Like the wall of a mountain, I can withstand the storms, but the waves
and I guard the witches.
So, the children of men were also so enthusiastic.
and lead the lost through the storms of life,
And watch, love, comfort the souls.
Since Fnland's independence in 1917, the island was for a long time under the control of the Finnish Defence Forces, but opened for tourism in the summer of 2009. You had to be a Finnish citizen to get to the island. The island was first guided by military historian Pekka Silvast, but after he died I jumped into his boots.
In the first year, 2018, I studied all new terms like calibers, and facts like gun ranges and stuff like that. Well, no one was interested in testing my caliber knowlede, and I created my own tour package for the island, because half of the visitors were children and women.
I speak in past tense, because as soon as Finland joined NATO in April 2023, Russarö was retaken by the army and tourists can no longer be taken there. Too bad, the Marine Lines company, for whom I worked as a guide, sometimes had a hundred people aboard : So great was the interest in Russarö Island.
In Russaro, I told three stories that I now tell on military history tours on land if they fit the topic. The first tells about the unbelievable deeds that can be done where there's a will. The so called Bethlehem canons (of Bethlehem Steel Company) were moved within a week from the island to safety on the mainland. They were moved because Hanko was rented out to the Soviet Union for 30 years as a naval base on 13 March 1940, as a result of the peace treaty.
The General Staff estimated it would take at least two months to move the canons, but where there's a will, there's a way. Major Niilo Heiro, Engineer Lieutenant Gunnar Renqvist and weapons technician Werner Lindqvist are the heroes of this story. They managed to convince the Naval Staff and got permission to start organizing this frenzied move. “If we could have 300 men and an icebreaker and weapons technicians and...” There were 6 cannons, each weighing about 100,000 kgs in total, and the frost was really tense. The canons were transported to the port of Hanko with the help of a specially reinforced icebreaker — there was 110 cm's of ice in the port of Russarö and, moreover, cruelly heavy canons could not be put on the deck of any old ship. The story is quite a testament of the power of motivation and guts. I'll tell you the story in full if you book a war history tour.
My second story is about the first day of the Winter War, and the 10-minute naval battle that Finland won. After that, the Soviet Union did not once attempt a sea route to enter Finland during the war. The Russian cruiser Kirov had received orders to leave its port to bombard Russarö. It arrived amidst two destroyers and began firing, but at Russarö they were ready and Kirov and its destroyers limped back to their port. I'll tell you the story in more detail on a war historical tour.
The third Russarö story took place in 1968, when, in theory, Finland could almost have shot the sovjet prime minister Andrej Kosygin to the bottom of the sea. Kosygin came for a secret visit to president Kekkonen — they went fishing, but no one was allowed to tell anybody anything. Kosygin's warship came into the binoculars of the commander of Russarö and it started quite a show — was the Russian warship going to cross Finland's territorial water border? In 1968? I will tell this hair raising story in full if you book a war history tour.
Book a tour in Hanko with me at leena.immonen@saaritours.fi
