It belonged to Marshal Mannerheim. For his 75th birthday in June 1942, his troops built him a hunting lodge and a lakeside sauna in East Karelia, then occupied by Finland. He came to see it that September and was photographed on the sauna steps in his greatcoat, his personal doctor right behind him. They say he was delighted. He planned to come back. He never did.

When the army withdrew in the summer of 1944, the soldiers took the sauna down log by log. In spring 1945 the same men built it again by a lake in Loppi, southern Finland. The landowner offered the land for free. Mannerheim insisted on paying. He got the keys on the longest day of the year.

The sauna is still heated today.

An army in retreat leaves many things behind. Not this sauna.

Would you have taken your sauna with you?

Sources: SA-kuva photographs, September 1942; Saatsi Architects, Marskin Maja; Perttuli, Marskin Maja (2023); Sauna-lehti (2023).
Photos: Pauli Jänis and E. Harju / SA-kuva and Finnish Heritage Agency, CC BY 4.0