The history of the farm Koivuranta started in the year 1935, when Aino and Sulo Häkkinen got possibility to buy a piece of forest. The condition of the trade was that they should start farming. There was a huge job to build the all-necessary buildings to hold the farm, because there was only forest and no roads. At first, they built a sauna, where they lived during the building a house. Before the sauna was ready, they arrived to the building site by the rowing boat every day.
Originally there was a plan to build the farm closer to the road, but Aino especially wanted a house with a lakeview. Many people said to Aino that “the lakeview will not bring money”, but Aino had decided that house has to be with the lakeview. Luckily, because nowadays we and our guests at the cottages enjoy the same lakeview than Aino and Sulo almost ninety years ago.
The life at the small farm was not easy and sometimes even hard. Luckily the farm was almost self-sufficient. There were enough milk and butter, because of the cows and a lot of fishes on the lake. They needed to buy only sugar, salt and coffee from the store. First cows of the farm were from Aino’s home. Cows were original Finnish cattle and their name were Ilona and Viikuna. Little by little amount of the cows was growing.
A year before the war, in the year 1938 born a boy at the farm. Big sister Terttu told that when she arrived from school to home, dad Sulo was very happy, because a plane has brought a boy to the farm. This is a story, how the birth of the boy was told to the big sister. The boy christened Tauno. There were a lot of guests at the christening and cousins brought a cake and cat as presents. The cat had eaten a piece of cake before their departure, so they needed to bring a rest of the cake inside the cat.
Summer of -39 was already troubled. After the beginning of the first Soviet-Finnish war a refugee family moved to the Koivuranta from the Karelia. All the windows had to be covered, because both Mikkeli and Pieksämäki were bombed. There was a prisoner of war Aleksei at the farm during the second Soviet-Finnish war. He worked at the warm and eat same food and lived together with the family. Especially Tauno has great memories about Aleksei, how he played mandolin or even send a letter later.
The son of Aino and Sulo Tauno started an agricultural school in the year 1959 after his military service. After one year in the school, Tauno returned to the farm and started to work there. Officially the farm passed from earlier generation to the next in the year 1965. The same year Tauno got married with Liisa. The main building of the farm was current Pihlaja-cottage. Aino and Sulo lived downstairs and Liisa and Tauno lived upstairs with their two sons. The current main building was completed in 1975.
In the 70’s Liisa and Tauno concentrated to develop milk producing and they bought new dairy cattle, which produced milk better. In the 80’s Liisa and Tauno started cottage rental and built cottages Koivu and Mänty. The first cottage was Mänty, which was completed in 1985.
The idea of the cottage rental was born by chance, when Liisa and Tauno were visited in Leningrad. They were accommodated in Moskva hotel, where they started to discuss with a couple from Germany. The German couple has a camera and they changed addresses, that they could send photos later. Unexpectedly the German couple had travelled in Finland and one day they arrived to the Koivuranta farm. The surprise was happy, but Liisa and Tauno thought where they could accommodate the couple. In 1971 was completed a small sauna building at the place of current Mänty-cottage. They decided to accommodate the German couple there. The German couple were absolutely in love with the place and said that German tourists would love to visit there. After their visit Liisa and Tauno started to build Mänty-cottage and there were a lot of German guests in 80’s.
The son of Liisa and Tauno Antti trained first at the electrical field, but after the meeting his future wife Virpi, they completed together agricultural school in Suonenjoki. There was both the wedding of the Virpi and Antti and the generational change of the farm in the year 1994. First years Virpi and Antti lived in the current Pihlaja cottage together with their daughter. In 1996 Liisa and Tauno built a new house and Virpi and Antti moved in the current main building. At the same time, they started to rent cottage-Pihlaja.
Virpi and Antti has especially invested in cottage rental. They have bought new cottages and renovated the old cottages. Someone could say, that they have always some renovating processes going on. Nowadays their children Susanna and Esa are also both helping with the company, how they have time with their own works and studies.
In 2007 Virpi and Antti bought the first Finnish cattle cows to the farm after 70’s. A little by little they bought more Finnish cattle and the amount of dairy cattle decreased. There are three different finncattle breeds: the Eastern finncattle, the Northern finncattle, and the Western finncattle. Nowadays there are all three finncattle breeds at the Koivuranta farm. During summer cows pasture in the forest and take care of the landscape.
There were only finncattle cows at the farm in 2017, when Virpi wanted to start develop milk producing. She completed a degree in milk producing and started to develop own products. Nowadays Virpi produces ice cream and cheeses from the milk of the farm’s cows.
Read more about products of Koivuranta farm.
