24-Jul-2002 -- This summer I drove for four days around Karelia in Russia with my two friends, Sami Löfbacka and Kari Karvonen.
We started our trip from Folk Music City Kaustinen (www.kaustinen.fi). On the first day we drove past the border, visited Vyborg and then drove to Zelenogorsk. On the third day we drove to St. Peterburg.
When we started our return journey we decided to spend some time in the old war-time zone. Because Sami is a history teacher he was especially interested in the area. Kari is an NCO (non-commissioned officer) and I am a Reserve Officer, so we were also quite interested as well. We stopped the car in the
historically important place of Komsomol'skoe (Ihantala in finnish).
We walked around in the forest and found several old war-time objects. We
continued our trip towards the border, and as I was driving I noticed that the GPS showed a confluence point very near, about 1.5 km from the road.
I stopped my car (World's Best Toyota Carina II Diesel), put on rubber boots and walked into the forrest. Sami is a good orienteerer so he showed us the way. We found the confluence point at a bech about 200 meters from a lake, called "Vuoksi" (very beautiful old Finnish lake......). The point was in the middle of a tangle. We build a flag and took a few photos. This was our second confluence point, but probably not last. After this discovery we continued our trip in Svetogorsk and then to the Finnish border, tired but happy...