On Ilomantsi

Oh Ilomantsi! The second furthest eastern most point in the EU (behind Cyprus and technically Reunion Island if you want to count that) . You give us so much to be thankful for! Your depopulation shows us how important it really is for Finns that they escape to better places that contain less bog land! You show us what it looks like when a town dies a not so slow death.


If you are ever in the middle of nowhere and you look at a map and say to yourself "Ilomantsi...I wonder what's there? It's only 100 kilometers away. Maybe I should go there! I could plan a stag night at the only night club in town. Maybe someone cool would be playing there?" How can you lose with thoughts like these? The town will surely welcome you with open arms because of you positive thinking towards it.

Meanwhile back in the real world: the nightclub is pad locked because it got no business. Most of the windows are smashed. The rest of the town doesn't look much better.Blink and you will miss it.

But, it does  holds a real gem...

The Church of the Prophet Elijah is the largest wooden Orthodox church in Finland. It's also probably the most impressive one I've seen. And I can tell you I've seen a couple of those in my time (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). No, but seriously...it is very impressive.