Chimneyless cabin

Originally located on the land of the Innanen farm in the village of Pajasyrjä in Jaakkima, this chimneyless cabin was purchased by the newly completed National Museum of Finland in 1913 to make it part of the museum’s interiors. The cabin had been built by Antti Siili, and the year 1836 had been carved on the log above the door.

At the beginning of the 19th century, a large part of the rural population still lived in chimneyless cabins. The development of buildings progressed at different rates in different parts of the country: the change was the fastest in the west, where the majority of the population had already moved to rooms with chimneys by the 1880s. In Eastern Finland, the development was slower and, in the 1880s, there were still twice as many chimneyless cabins as there were ones with chimneys.

In the usual Karelian way, the Jaakkima chimneyless cabin was part of a whole, which included the cabin, an outbuilding opposite it and a covered porch between them. The National Museum decided to buy only one half of the building: the cabin. Unheated and windowless, the low outbuilding had been built with notched round logs and used for storing food. It was not moved to the museum with the cabin.

The National Museum wanted the chimneyless cabin to represent the oldest form possible. Since the windows of the Jaakkima cabin had glazing, which had become common in the early 19th century, it was decided to replace the logs in the side wall with logs that still had old-fashioned hatch windows. They were found in a chimneyless cabin in the village of Lahdenmaa in Kirvu.

The chimneyless cabin from Pajasyrjä, Jaakkima, is one of the first complete sets purchased for the museum and, in addition to the drawing room of the Jakkarila Manor, the only remaining part of the National Museum’s original interiors. The cabin significantly represents the ordinary Finnish way of life and the part of the population that formed the majority in Finland.