I went on along the Eastern border and reached a municipality called Rautjärvi. The place is rather small, and the biggest thing there is a large cardboard factory. The municipality’s veins are highway number 6 and the Karelian railroad track, which go directly through it.
The current Rautjärvi Municipality was formed in 1973, when the neighbouring municipality of Simpele was merged into it. As the centre of Simpele was far larger than any of the villages in Rautjärvi, this became the new administrative centre of Rautjärvi. About half of the municipality’s population live there next to the cardboard factory.
So the municipality is called Rautjärvi. The coats of arms of the municipality are those of the old Rautjärvi municipality. But the administrative centre is called Simpele. The village of Rautjärvi is far from it and extremely small.
Also the only active railway station in the municipality is called Simpele, as it lies in the administrative centre. But this has not always been the case. In the late 1980’s when the famous Finnish 1950’s made railbuses were retired, dozens of railway stations were closed.
If you today want to take a train to Rautjärvi, you get off it in Simpele, Simpele as that. But until the 1980’s there was also a station called Rautjärvi, which was nowhere near the centre of Rautjärvi, but in the very small station village of the former municipality of Rautjärvi. This in turn was several kilometres away from the main administrative village of the former municipality of Rautjärvi pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
So if you wanted to take a train to Rautjärvi in the 1980’s, where would you go?
Things were made simpler (or Simpeler) by the closure of Rautjärvi station in 1989. The village is a lot quieter now than back in the days and so is the station.
Sadly not much is happening here anymore.
The roof looks new, but there’s a rather large hole in it on the other side. Sadly I don’t predict a very long future for this building.