Holiday home fair

I, Sanna and Aapo spent the midsummer in Northern Carelia. The trip was mostly uneventful — just like good holidays are, lazy grilling, spending several hours in sauna, burning one bonfire and so forth.

On Thursday we visited holiday home fair in Koli. If you are not familiar with Finnish geography or history, a brief introduction about Koli may be needed.

Koli is a remain (or relic) of once several kilometers high mountains in Carelia. Erosion has slowly eaten the mountains away and only few quite low peaks are left. Koli is one of them, standing over lake Pielinen (one of the biggest lakes in Finland). It has been a sacred place during stone age.

When Finnish nationality was a big hit back in late 19th century, foremost culture people visited Koli to be inspired from the magnificent views and unspoilt and mythic Finnish nature.

Nowadays Koli is a national park and hub for outdoor activities and tourism in Northern Carelia. There is a hotel, a country club and several cottage villages nearby.

The villas of holiday home fair were built some five kilometers from the Koli peak, on the shores of lake Pielinen. There were 20+ villas open to the public, some refurbished and most newly built.

All of them offered luxury settings for holidays. They were more like second homes with electricity, water and broadband Internet connection.

The most peculiar villa was a log “cabin” made of concrete. Finnish people like to use “kelo” logs to built the most poshy log cabins. Kelo is a pine that has died while standing and slowly dried to grey that tints a bit to blue.

Making a kelo takes ten to twenty years (not a fact but a memory item), and understandably the production has not met the demand. Finns have raided also nearby Russian forests to find kelos and the price has raised.

One guy got an idea to emulate kelo with concrete. He bought a few kelos, made molds, and used tinted concrete to build kelo-like elements. These elements, in turn, where used to built the villa. From a distance, it looks real. Nearby you can see that it’s not real. Inside, you don’t care, as the villa is so lavishly furbished.

The other villas were not so peculiar, but all of them boasted very nice vista to lake Pielinen, modern technology mixed with modern furniture, and hefty pricetag.

To be honest though: I’d take any of those villas instead of normal Finnish cabin. I might be spoilt, but I do appreciate everyday luxury.