Century old Finnish school could return to community use

The abandoned Ruottukka School in Koppelo, a village in Inari municipality, could still be renovated, Yle reports. Its current private owner is willing to sell the building, while local residents want to restore it for community use.

The school was founded in 1926 and the building was completed a few years later on land donated by people from Koppelo. It operated as a school until the 1950s and is one of the few buildings in Lapland to survive the Lapland War without being burned.

The building, also known as Koppelo School, stands by Ruottukkavuopaja. Its windows and door are now boarded up, and it has been empty and without major renovation for more than 20 years.

Local residents fear the building may not remain standing for much longer. They nevertheless believe it could still be repaired and used by the community.

When the school in Ruottukka closed and a new school was built in Koppelo beside the main road in the 1950s, the old building remained in community use. A road to Ruottukka was not built until the 1990s.

Former and current members of the Koppelo village association say they would still be ready to work towards bringing the school back into community use. They regard it as more than a building: it was a meeting place that local people helped build and maintain.

The issue was discussed again this summer after an amateur theatre group from Ivalo staged a play about the school’s history.

In the 1990s, Pirjo Nissi and Seija Huovinen were active in the Koppelo village committee. According to meeting minutes from 1994, they joined an appeal to Inari municipality arguing that it was time to return the donated gift to common use. The reference was to the land donated by local residents for the school.

Before the sale, the municipality rented the building to the Nuorisokasvatuksen tuki association. The municipality sold it to a private buyer in 2005.

Pentti Tarvainen, who was Inari’s director of administration at the time, says he does not remember much about the discussions or reasons behind the sale. Nissi and Huovinen recall that the municipality believed the village committee lacked the resources to renovate and maintain the building.

Local residents still remember visiting the school as children. Heli Huovinen recalls trips there with her family and with Koppelo School, while Pirjo Nissi remembers playing there when children could still enter the building.