5 Development of Sola and Sotkuma

Sisällys 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 3 2 THEORY .................................................................................................................................... 5 3 METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................................................... 6 4 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................ 7 5 DEVELOPMENT OF SOLA AND SOTKUMA ............................................................................. 11 5.1 Population development ................................................................................................ 11 5.2 Schools ............................................................................................................................ 13 5.3 Rural landscape in the past ............................................................................................ 14 5.4 The changes in the road infrastructure .......................................................................... 16 6 COMPARATION OF SOLA AND SOTKUMA ............................................................................. 17 6.1 Briefly view of the village................................................................................................ 17 6.2 Interview ......................................................................................................................... 18 7 SWOT ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 23 8 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 25 9 SOURCES ................................................................................................................................ 27 2 1 INTRODUCTION This report is the outcome of the project The Faces of Landscape and it took place in the city of Joensuu and region of the North Karelia, Finland. This project had been running from the 01.05.2011 until 14.05 2011 and attended by students from the University of Girona in Spain, Joensuu University in Finland and the University of Prešov in Slovakia. The names of students are Maria Piella (University of Girona), Štefánia Nováková (Prešov University in Prešov), Vladimír Fedor (Prešov University in Prešov), and Veera Juusti (University of Eastern Finland). The aim of our project is to compare and analyze the reasons of differences between the villages Sotkuma and Sola, which are situated in the municipality of Polvijärvi. Sotkuma has managed to retain its livelihood, whereas Sola is having problems in maintaining services and residents in the village. These villages have approximately the same distance from the cities Polvijärvi and Joensuu, which are situated in Eastern Finland. In our report we are trying to analyze life in these villages and identify factors that influence increasing or decreasing the prosperity of those two locations. Our work includes short history of villages, interview with local residents in Sola and Sotkuma, SWOT analyze of Sotkuma village and photos of buildings in these two villages. Both villages are situated in Pohjois-Karjala, Itä-Suomi, Finland. 3 4 2 THEORY I wandered lonely as a Cloud That floats on high o´er Vales and Hills, When all at once I saw a crowd A host, of golden Daffodils . I gazed – and gazed – but little thought What wealth the shew to me had brought: For oft when my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude … (William Wordsworth, Daffodils) It is difficult to write a concrete definition of landscape because different people have different explanation of this term. When we are reading poems or prose with description of landscape we can imagine different trees, hills or rivers, completely different nature. Many poets describe landscape in their poems. Looking at Wordsworth´s poem Daffodils we can see that the author explains the term landscape in the spiritual view with using cloud, vales and hills. On the other hand we can find a range of definitions from the geographic point of view. These differences can be influenced by many factors, e.g. different morphological units, location, settlements or culture and traditions. 5 Here are some examples of definitions: Landscape was firstly defined by Tuan in the 17th century, as a construct of the mind as well as physical and measurable entity. According to Appleton: “Landscape is a kind of backcloth to the whole stage of human activity.” (JOHONSON, M., p. 2) Cosgrove claims: “A landscape is a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolizing surroundings… Landscape is a social and cultural product, a way of seeing projected onto the land and having its own techniques and compositional forms; a restrictive way of seeing that diminishes alternative modes of experiencing our relations with nature.” (JOHONSON, M., p. 2) And last but not least definition of landscape according to Relph: “Landscape is not merely an aesthetic background to life, rather it is a setting that both expresses and conditions cultural attitudes and activities, and significant modifications to landscapes are not possible without major changes in social attitudes . Landscape are therefore always imbued with meanings that come from how and why we know them.” (JOHONSON, M., p. 2) As we can see there are a lot of different definitions but only think that all geographers know is, that landscape is changing all the time mainly created by human activity. 3 METHODOLOGY The methodology that we have used based on a two weeks intensive workshop and the visitation of the two villages, Sola and Sotkuma. The analysis is based on the bibliography and the cartography about the study case. We didn’t have time to get any old pictures of Sotkuma and Sola, so we had to find another way to explore, how the rural landscape was before. The method we used for this project was searching information about the history of 6 the both villages. Unfortunately most of the written history deals with the whole Polvijärvi municipality, and only some settlement information of villages could be found. Regarding information on agriculture and forestry there were some figures of Sotkuma but none of Sola. Therefore decent comparison between the two villages in the past couldn’t be done. We also had the opportunity to do three interviews. Each member group has written various parts of the article that we've put in common. Finally, the conclusions have been written and discussed in group, as well as the human geography part after a brief analysis. 4 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Source: data from http://www.paikkatietoikkuna.fi/web/en/map-window 7 Sola and Sotkuma are villages in the municipality of Polvijärvi, in the region of Pohjois-Karjala (North Karelia). North Karelia is part of the eastern Finnish lake complex, the largest lake area in the whole of Europe. The area of the region is 21 585 sq. km, with 3803 sq. km of waterways. About a 70% of the land is covered by forest. The region may be divided into two broad areas of landscape; one is dominated by lakes and the other one by wooden hills. The border between these two areas follows a seam of quartzite, which turns from the west across the northern shore of the Lake Höytiäinen to the Pielinen lake basin and continues south-eastwards towards the border with Russia. The level-lowering operation of Lake Höytiäinen in 1859 reduced the surface area of the lake by one third. And as a result of this operation carried out to gain more agricultural land, one of the largest lakes in Finland shrank substantially. To the south and west of the dividing quartzite, the North Karelian lake area is fairly typical of Finnish Lakeland and is the location of most of the region’s centers of population. The low-lying lands around the lakes lay under water for a long period after the Ice Age. Indeed, as little as 5000 years ago they were still covered by the ancient Lake Saimaa. The quartzite zone itself and areas to its north and east are more sparsely populated, dominated by wooded hills covered in conifer forest with floristically meager mireland in between. Further variety of landscape on this two billion yard old bedrock is provided by a series of rift or canyon valleys with Kolvananuuro, located of the isthmus between Lakes Pielinen and Höytiäinen. Almost one fifth of North Karelia is covered by water, the headwaters to be found far off in Russian Karelia. Thus Lieksanjoki, flows into Finland from Russian Karelia before discharging into L.Pielinen. These waters then flow on through the main artery of North Karelia, the Pielisjoki, to L. Pyhäselkä. Although North Karelia is the furthest inland of all of Finland’s regions its climate is still influenced by moist air warmed by the Gulf Stream, but within Finland North Karelia has the 8 most continental climate after Lapland, reflected in the large difference between maximum and minimum temperatures, which can exceed 60°C. This continental effect, with severe winter frosts, increases further eastwards and northwards, though the lakes act as a heat reserve and so help to keep the climate milder well into the autumn. In the southern part of the region the growing season begins in early May, while further north it can be up to ten days later, the same gradation affecting the

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