Combatant's House

Outside the main building is Finland's second largest display of artillery guns. The exhibitions and cafeteria are open in summer only.

Exhibition on military history of Ilomantsi

Combatant's House was built in 1988 to commemorate the deeds of war veterans. Artifacts, maps, photographs and videos can be viewed both indoors and outside the main building. They tell us stories of the wars of 1939–1945, of the fates of evacuees, and of the post-war period.

The focus of the exhibition is on the battles fought in Ilomantsi in the late summer of 1944, which is appropriate, because the closest engagements occurred at Sikrenvaara only 1.5 kilometers from the location of the building when the Finns blunted a Red Army assault on Hattuvaara in the early morning of July 30.

Even the building materials of Combatant’s House emanate war history. The heavy timbers were hewn of logs hauled from the battlegrounds east of Hattuvaara. Some of them still show scars from shell fragments.

Outside the main building in a purpose-built weather shelter is Finland's second largest display of artillery guns. The array includes 12 pieces that were fired in anger in Ilomantsi, some of them captured from the enemy.

Inside is a comprehensive collection of military equipment, of which some were used by Red Army soldiers. One section of the display is dedicated to Lotta Svärd, a women’s volunteer auxiliary service that was disbanded at the request of the Allied Control Commission in the fall of 1944.

Lauri Törni joined the United States Army as Larry Thorne in 1954.

Still another topic of interest is the small display on the career of Lauri Törni, a renowned soldier and Knight of the Mannerheim Cross, whose company saw action in Ilomantsi in August 1944.

Törni fought under three flags. In 1954, he joined the United States Army as Larry Thorne and served until his death in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1965.

The exhibitions and cafeteria are open in summer only.