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- Viena Karelian villages in Finland
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- Attractions in Kuivajärvi and Hietajärvi villages
Attractions in Kuivajärvi and Hietajärvi villages
The Heritage House of Hietajärvi represents the old construction heritage of Viena Karelia. Karelian characteristics can be seen also in Jussi Huovinen's house, the village chapel and the house of Domna.
The Heritage House of Hietajärvi is a traditional Karelian house constructed by Juminkeko Foundation. The runo singer Jussi Huovinen's childhood home served as a model for the house.
Upon an initiative by the Karelian Cultural Society, the Väinölä Foundation built Domna House to honor the bards from Finnish Viena. The house has served both villagers and travellers to the village as a visitor center and training venue since 1964. The House gets its name from the bard Domna Huovinen, who moved from Vuokinsalmi to Kuivajärvi when she married.
The present Orthodox village chapel was built in 1957 and consecrated the following year. The previous chapel was destroyed in the Winter War in February 1940 when Finnish soldiers burnt the village following its evacuation. That chapel had only been in use some five years. The one before it also burned: a small storage shed-like structure in the yard of Hilippä Huovinen, its fate was to be destroyed when the main house burned down at the beginning of the century.
The old graveyard, shared by Hietajärvi, Kuivajärvi and Vuokinsalmi (across the border), is located on an island in Lake Vuokkijärvi, which is next to Hietajärvi. When the border was closed in the 1920s, the villages on the Finnish side had to start a new graveyard, because the old graveyard was right on the border.
The new graveyard in Kuivajärvi has been in use since the 1920s.
The Memorial of the family Huovinen was erected in 2005. It is designed by architect Árpad Sailo and erected by the family association of the family Huovinen.