The Rauhaniemi Museum

The Rauhaniemi Museum is located slightly less than 10 km from downtown Sulkava at Vanha Lossiranta. Since Rauhaniemi is continuing the tradition of the museum that was established in downtown Sulkava in the 1930s, it is one of Southern Savo’s oldest local museums. The museum is owned and run by the municipality of Sulkava.

The museum is comprised of two separate parts: an openair museum and a log-driver museum. The open-air museum has the main building, storehouses, the smoke sauna, the barn and the stable of the Summala Farm on its grounds. Some of the buildings are the original buildings from the Summala Farm, while some of them have been moved to the museum grounds from elsewhere or rebuilt in the spirit of the time. The buildings have been placed in the same set-up that they were in when they were at Summala. The open-air museum depicts what it looked like at the beginning of the 20th century and the interior of the buildings has been decorated to reflect that period of time.

The main building of the Summala Farm, a chimneyless hut, dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. It was still lived in in the 1930s, until it was moved to the local history museum in downtown Sulkava in 1936. It was moved to its current location in 1980. The chimneyless hut was extended with a chamber and a dairy room through a covered hallway. It has a cloverleaf layout, which is very rare in the region.

The Log-driver Museum is located next to the open-air museum in a Metsähallitus inn for community gatherings that was built in the 1850s. The building was moved from Syrjäsaari in Lohilahti, first to the grounds of the Rauhaniemi School and then to its current location in 1995. Originally, it was used by log drivers when they were driving logs down the river. In addition, the forest ranger lived there. The inn is decorated in a way that gives visitors a good idea of what life was like in this type of inn in the 1940–1950s.