Big Vicarage

Big Vicarage stands on Pappilanvaara hill, Little Vicarage on the backround. You can see both buildings from the water tower café.

Location of observation post during Winter and Continuation Wars

Most observers were members of Lotta Svärd Association, a women’s volunteer auxiliary service that was disbanded at the request of the Allied Control Commission in the fall of 1944.

They worked year-round 24 hours a day in two-hour shifts. During cold winter nights when biting winds blew, they froze to the bone although the rooftop platform was not that far above ground level.

The observers’ essential equipment included a notepad, an aircraft recognition chart, a sighting instrument, binoculars, and a telephone.

They reported immediately every aircraft sighting by telephone to the area air surveillance center located at Joensuu town hall.

Enemy aircraft bombed Ilomantsi parish village on Christmas Day 1939 causing most damage on the present-day Kauppatie street. An unexploded Russian incendiary bomb was unearthed only 200 meters from Big Vicarage during underground cable laying work in the mid-2010s.

During the raid, a man was seen to parachute from one of the Tupolev bombers and descend somewhere behind Lake Ilomantsi. The man was tracked and captured by a hastily assembled search team, who discovered that he was a well-equipped special forces soldier.

Big Vicarage is in private use and not accessible to public.