Word: sortavala
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...tall Swede, looking like a grown-up Boy Scout on a jamboree, stood before a scarred building in Sortavala and laughed delightedly. Prince Gustaf Adolf, 35, who will one day be Sweden's King if his longevous royal grandfather (83) and father (60) die in time, was on a tour of Finland's Russian Front. His Finnish guides had just shown him a church which the preposterous Russians had converted into a combination stable and restaurant. On the wall was a poster saying: OBSERVE CLEANLINESS...
...Soviet Government is believed to have planned the presentation of demands to Finland more far-reaching in character than those presented last autumn." Paris-Soir printed rumored Russian demands as telephoned from Stockholm: 1) the whole Karelian Isthmus, including Viipuri; 2) all territory northeast of Lake Laatokka, including Sortavala; 3) the northern part of Finnish Lapland, including Petsamo; 4) a naval base at Hanko, plus the whole Hanko peninsula. The demands were said to have been presented in the form of a 24-hour ultimatum. For that piece of reportage, no correspondents were permitted to telephone anything out of Stockholm...
From Stockholm it was reported late Monday that modified terms had been agreed upon in Moscow-strangely in the United States Embassy-and that the Finnish delegation was on its way home to win Parliamentary approval. The new demands were said to be considerably easier: Viipuri, Sortavala, and Petsamo would not be taken; and instead of Hanko, Uto (halfway between Hanko and the Aland Islands) would do for a naval base; the Terijoki Government would be abandoned...
...Russians went after every centre of communications: railways, telegraph and telephone centres, roadheads, bridges, factories. (They got a ski factory and the Finns were short of skis.) This meant that civilians had to bear the brunt of the bombings. Typical of the destruction wrought was the case of Sortavala, vital railway junction on the north shore of Laatokka. Correspondent James Aldridge left it, "majestic in the moonlight." one midnight. The next night he returned, "saw a bloody glow in the sky and realized the city was in flames...
...miles out, sparks were flying over the road. People carrying bundles were walking along with children, some with pushcarts, fleeing. Houses on the edge of town were burning fiercely. There was fire everywhere one looked, for Sortavala was a wooden city. . . . All day the city had been subjected to a continuous aerial bombardment by waves of Russian planes, dropping mostly incendiary bombs. . . . This place of 17,000 persons* could not now house a thousand...