Location: Patola In Helsinki (FINLAND)

N60°14.25'

E024°57.27'

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 1- The work to build the different positions to the Base XXI was started in 1915. Much has disappeared from the base, but this position gives a good picture, about the excellent view to the direction where the enemy was suppose to be coming.

- The position contains one simple cave, from which the doorway has been filled quite heavily, but still it's very easy to visit the interiors which are full of garbage. Other than that, there is trenches and few remains from a machine gun positions, but many of the trenches and machine gun positions have been damaged by the people living nearby. Luckily the cave is a bit off from civilization, meaning that there's really no graffiti's on the wall.

- Still the original corrugated sheet roof is missing as well as the door, which is quite surprising. Normally all of the caves which have been completed, still contains the door. Only the caves which were never completed, are without the metal door.

- The books telling about the time of the First World War in Finland, contains quite a many notes about Krepost Sveaborg. The following informal translation is an citing from the book: Diary of a Red Guardsman (Punakaartilaisen Päiväkirja) by Viljo Sohkanen. He joined the Red Guards at the age of seventeen, participated to the battles in the area of Vyborg as a medic and was finally captured in the area of Tikkurila by the advancing Germans and White Guards. Text in the closures are comments from the translator, meaning me:

" Finally the day we had been waiting for so long arrived, payday. We got paid for the first time, from a job like this (Being a Red Guardsman). Our names were called out according to a list and everyone needed to sign the receipt or put his own mark, if he didn't know how to write. This wasn't like in the trench work (Krepost Sveaborg). There the cashier gave out the money through a small hatch, without any receipt or signature. Perhaps that was the reason, why it was so easy for the misters to keep some of the money for themselves. "

- The above citing has been written in the early part of the January 1918. It also gives a good picture, how corruption was a great problem when the Krepost Sveaborg was build. Actions like that combined with the beurocracy, slowed down the fortification work significantly.

 

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 2

 

- Stairs leading out from the trenches and to the back areas of the position.

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 3

 

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 4

 

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 5

 

- The end of the cave. A very simple one, it follows a similar pattern, which have come so familiar to me during the past few years. The walls never cease to amaze me, as they somehow don't seem to "fit" to the general construction. Hard to explain, but when you see these caves with your own eyes, you'll perhaps understand what I mean. I always wonder, that what if someone dropped something behind the wall? What then? There's no way of getting anything out from there. Although perhaps the roof was attached so close to the walls, that there was no holes to drop in anything, even for people like me...

Base XXI, Position 6, Picture 6 (Map)

- A rough draft of the cave, found from the position six. This is the most simple designs, found from the fortification.

 

II Northern Defensive Zone (1915 - 1918) Next

Krepost Sveaborg (Viapori)

©kimmo.nummela@kolumbus.fi