Parissavaara

Remains of 290 dugout shelters of various sizes have been identified at Parissavaara.

Red Army billeting area in Winter War

The characteristics of the terrain combined with a maze of waterways that formed a major obstacle to the attacker favored the defenders, who managed to halt the enemy assault on the banks of the Koitajoki River at Kallioniemi.

The Russians established a billeting area on the crest and slopes of Parissavaara hill on either side of the road. Since the Red Army was lacking cardboard or canvas tents, field stoves and other winter camp gear, men had to dig into the frozen ground.

They carved dugouts and pits that gave a modicum of shelter from the elements, and often roofed them with just a single layer of laths and tree branches. On the other hand, some constructions were nearly comparable to Finnish timber-shored underground accommodation shelters. The Russians also built stables, machine gun nests and other structures.

Remains of 290 dugout shelters of various sizes have been identified at Parissavaara. The volume of the smallest of them barely exceeded one cubic meter. Soldiers converted metal cartridge boxes and buckets into rudimentary stoves and tried to fire them with wet wood chips and still green twigs.

Yet the life of Soviet soldiers was not only resting and sleeping. On the orders of Colonel Paavo Talvela, two Finnish battalions launched an attack on Parissavaara on December 22 but failed to dislodge the Russians. The attack was called off, and the battalions withdrew to their point of departure by the following morning.

The Russians also built gun emplacements at Parissavaara, from where they could fire on the Finnish defenders at Kallioniemi.