Every design for Suonenjoki

Mansikkatyttöpatsas, the strawberry girl statue, says most of what you need to know about Suonenjoki. This is the Strawberry Town, a North Savo community whose coat of arms carries three strawberry leaves and whose fields have been given over to the berry since the middle of the last century. Every summer pickers arrive from abroad, many from Ukraine and Russia, turning a small inland town into the most international place in Finland for a few weeks, and in July the Strawberry Carnival, Mansikkakarnevaalit, takes over.

Lintharju, a long, narrow and scenic ridge just outside the centre, is protected as a Natura site and is the place locals head for a walk. In town, the river Suonenjoki flows from Lake Suontee to Lake Iisvesi beneath old crossings such as Kruunusilta, the Crown Bridge, and Siioninsilta. Sawmills once drove the economy, the Savo railway brought the station, and today trains and the main road link Suonenjoki to both Kuopio and Jyväskylä. Suonenjoen kotiseutumuseo looks after the local past.

Then there is Pähkinäsaaren rauhan muistomerkki, recalling the tradition that a boundary marker of the Treaty of Nöteborg stood here. A map on a shirt is a smaller kind of marker, but it says the same thing: this is where you are from.