Photo Anssi Mellblom

It is 1991 and I am looking in vain for my home street that had been called Sotilaskatu ("Soldier Street"). This neighbourhood had already been bombed to ashes in the Winter War. This is where the new residential areas built by the Russians start. I could recognise the place by the stony Patterimäki ("Battery Hill") and the massive Water Tower, or the Water Castle as it was called in my childhood. The streets close to my home had names in the spirit of Kalevala, the Finnisn national epic, with streets named after Aino, Otava, Kaleva, Sampo, Pellervo and Kullervo.

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