Return To Karelia - The Sequel

So many adventures and history would occur in the next few days it is virtually impossible to describe in words, so a few will be highlighted. Again this trip and its adventures would have never occurred had it not been for the assistance and companionship of many people.

Memories of the Petrosavodsk Visit

• Mildred Tuomala Petrosavodsk High School Friend - One morning on a very early walk Joe Hall met a street sweeper and had a very short conversation; he did not speak English and Joe does not speak Russian. In the course of the exchange Joe explained that he was Finnish, since he thought the street sweeper looked Finnish. The next morning a small invitation was delivered to Joe's hotel door inviting him to lunch, with a driver picking him up from the hotel. After a short taxi ride the cab arrived at an apartment building and Joe was taken up to a third floor apartment. In the apartment were four elderly women. One women through various communications indicated that she knew Mildred Tuomala and produced a picture of Mildred for Joe to see. It was truly an amazing experience to meet a women by sheer accident who knew my mother sixty eight years later. Following the lunch Joe was driven back to the hotel, in a somewhat dazed state of mind.

• Karelian National Archives - Immediately after registering at the Hotel Severyna Joe Hall was taken to the Karelian National Archives and filed for his family's records. These records were eventually mailed to the US and are shown on an earlier web page.

Roy a former student of Joe's great aunt in Michigan, on Kizhi Island

• Kizhi Island - This architectural marvel is a small wooden church on an island in Lake Onega east of Petrosavodsk. On the first day in Petrosavodsk Joe Hall was introduced to a Russian Professor and his family from Moscow who accompanied him on the hyrdo-foil boat ride to the island. A beautiful example of Karelian wooden architecture. On the island Joe noticed a man wearing a baseball cap with Michigan Technical University written on it. Upon introducing himself to the man Joe discovered that he was from the same town in Michigan that his cousin was from and in fact this gentleman knew his cousin and had a Joe's great aunt, Henry Tuomala's sister as his first grade teacher. A very small world.

• Karelian Sanomat - On the advice of Americans who had visited Petrosavodsk Joe Hall visited the Finnish language magazine of Karelia, the Karelian Sanomat. A reporter at the newspaper, Ilona Veikkolainen, took an interest in Joe's family story and published an article in Finnish on the visit. Click here to visit the web site of the Karelian Sanomat.

  Joe and Mayme Sevander

• Meeting Mayme Sevander - In wondering around the hotel he was staying in in Petrosavodsk Joe Hall noticed an Intourist Office. During a conversation with the office manager he was told that Mayme Sevander, the author of a number of books on the Karelian Fever movement, was visiting her brother in Petrosavodsk. The Intourist manager quickly phoned a number and arrangements were made for Mayme and Joe to meet.

• Friends in Petrosavodsk - For an American to be so warmly greeted in Russia so soon after the end of the Cold War was amazing and very humbling. University Professors from Moscow and Petrosavodsk invited Joe to meet their family and join them for dinner, two students took Joe to a Christian school and gave a guided tour of the town and so many others.

Stepping on the night train back to St. Petersburg Joe realized that sixty eight years can make a difference and Petrosavodsk was not the same town and Russia was not the same country as his mother knew.

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