"This soil on which you are walking has been fought over for centuries," he says, stopping beside an ornate wooden cottage. "Karelia is often described as a battlefield lying between East and West. And, for some people, the struggle over Karelia still goes on."

between Russia and Finland, Karelia covers more than 260,000 square kilometres. With its myriad lakes (Ladoga and Onega are the two largest lakes in Europe), roaring cascades and huge swathes of birch, pine and spruce forest, this is a beautiful land. It is also home to a Finno-Ugric people whose history is among the most tumultuous in Europe.

"With Karelia continually criss-crossed by shifting borders, the Karelians have never really enjoyed a unified homeland," says Marina Tsherbak, head of public relations at the Karelian State Museum of Local History, in Petrozavodsk. "Rich in resources [such as iron ore and diamonds], their territory has been fought over for centuries, by Russians, Swedes and Finns. Living on the crossroads between Europe and Russia has brought the Karelians much strife and suffering."

Previously an autonomous part of the Russian empire, Finland gained independence in 1917. In 1939, after the outbreak of the second world war, the Soviet Union (which Russia had then been subsumed by) asked Finland to hand over territory on the Russian border to help it defend the key city of Leningrad (now St Petersburg).

When Finland refused, the Soviets invaded. "We cannot do anything about geography, nor can you," Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, told the Finns. "But since Leningrad cannot be moved away, the frontier must be further off."

The ensuing conflicts - the winter war (1939-40) and continuation war (1941-44) - between Finland and the Soviet Union saw some of the bloodiest battles of the second world war. The Finns were dramatically outnumbered and under-resourced: in the first conflict, for every 192 Red Army tanks, they had one; the Soviets deployed 810,000 men, equivalent to nearly 25 per cent of the Finnish population at the time; and, for the invaded nation, basic necessities such as ammunition were in short supply.

The Soviets had expected it to take just 12 days for the border territories of Finland to fall. But the defenders, clad in white and on skis, used their superior knowledge of the snowy terrain to outmanoeuvre the Russians for many months. The Red Army, meanwhile, unsure on skis, was road-bound and highly visible in khaki uniforms. As temperatures dropped to minus 43 degrees Celsius, Finnish soldiers lined their trenches with fur and built makeshift saunas in bunkers, deserted buildings and even tents. The invaders, on the other hand, were trapped in a snowy hell, their wounded deprived of pain relief as morphine supplies froze. Finnish troops sometimes displayed the bodies of those enemies who had frozen to death in an act of psychological warfare.

Nearly 100,000 Finnish and 400,000 Soviet soldiers died or disappeared during the two conflicts. Almost 15,000 Soviet troops lost their lives in just one confrontation, in February 1940, not far from Rubchoila, at a lakeside spot now marked by a simple iron cross.

After three years of fighting - during which the Finns lost Karelia and then, with the help of the Germans, won it back - the continuation war ended in lasting defeat for Finland. In September 1944, the Finnish government signed away more than 10 per cent of its territory, 30 per cent of its energy sources, 22 per cent of its forests and 20 per cent of its railway lines. The loss of the southern Karelian Isthmus and Finland's second city of Viipuri (now Vyborg) was a crushing blow for the fledgling nation.

"The isthmus was an economic cornerstone of Finland and one of the most culturally and socially vibrant parts of the newly established country," says Petrozavodsk-based guide Svetlana Matveyeva. "For Finland, it was like having an arm amputated."

Most Finns and Finnish Karelians living in the ceded areas chose to relocate rather than live under Soviet rule.

"The people who wanted to leave were given two or three weeks to pack up and cross into Finland," says Nina Terehova, a 70-year-old tour guide in Sortavala, a town 70km east of the present Russo-Finnish border. "It was hard for them to go. Some had already had to evacuate the area once before, after the end of the winter war."

The resettlement of more than 400,000 people was both economically and socially challenging. Those living in the rest of Finland were forced to accept an influx of demoralised people with an unfamiliar dialect and religion - most Finns are Lutheran while the majority of Karelians are Eastern Orthodox.

Today, the geographical division of Karelia remains convoluted. In the east, the Russian half of Karelia is divided between the Republic of Karelia and the Leningrad Oblast, which includes the Karelian Isthmus. In the west, the Finnish half is divided between the regions of North and South Karelia. The territory ceded by Finland in 1944 lies along the central to southern strip of the border with the Russian territory.

The legacy of the Republic of Karelia's complicated past is a region shaped by 20th-century Russian arrivals, influenced by modern Finnish culture and haunted by a cultural Karelian past.

, is a huge volume of poetry based on Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology, and was the catalyst for creating a sense of national identity that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia.

also tells of the birth of the - the instrument to which many of the tome's epic poems were set. Today, it is the national instrument of Finland and has become a symbol of the struggle to safeguard traditional Karelian culture.

In Petrozavodsk, mastery of the is a prized skill. The city of 260,000 people is connected by road and rail to St Petersburg, 425km to the southwest, and is the gateway to the republic for most Russians. As well as two universities, Petrozavodsk is home to one of Russian Karelia's premier folk groups, Ensemble Kantele, founded in 1936.

"The is over 2,000 years old and unites Finland and Karelia," says Larisa Kravtseva, Ensemble Kantele's head of public relations. "It played a key role in the Karelianism movement that took hold in Finland in the late 19th century. It was at this time that Finns came to view the whole Karelian region as a sort of utopian refuge for the essence of 'Finnishness'."

The oldest Karelian were made from a single piece of hollowed-out wood and five horsehair strings. About 200 years ago, to diversify the instrument's repertoire, makers started adding more strings and, today, a can have up to 40.

In a top-floor workshop at Kantele House, Alexander Frolov takes a break from his woodwork to brew a pot of tea and boil some Karelian pirogi (dumplings stuffed with potato). The amiable Russian has been making for more than 20 years.

"I think I am the only one seriously making in the whole of Russian Karelia now," says Frolov, taking a bite of his steaming snack. "I can make them from fir, pine or alder and each one takes about a month or two to complete, depending on the size."

Three-quarters Russian and one-quarter Vepsian (another Finno-Ugric minority), Frolov's commitment to such an iconically Karelian instrument might seem strange. "The is an important part of Karelian culture and I want to do what I can to make sure its popularity is maintained," he says.

"A handful of parents in Petrozavodsk currently want their children to study Karelian language, dance and instruments, such as the ," adds Kravtseva . "Whether this is enough to keep Karelian culture alive only time will tell."

Today, most of the 650,000 people living in the Republic of Karelia are ethnic Russians. Only about 10 per cent of the population call themselves Karelian, and not all of those speak the language.

"Until 1985 and the onset of glasnost [a policy that called for transparency in government institutions in the Soviet Union], the issue of the disappearance of the Karelian language had never been raised and could not be discussed [under Soviet laws]," says Matveyeva.

"A conference on the issue was held in Petrozavodsk in 1989, when a non-governmental cultural association called the Karjalan Rahvahan Liitto [Union of the Karelian People] was founded. A local newspaper in Karelian was started and Karelian became a subject in some schools."

According to official figures, about 1,800 children now study the language in 40 schools across the Republic of Karelia. The introduction of Karelian lessons is at the discretion of a school's head teacher and the language has no legal status.

"The Republic of Karelia is the last republic in the Russian Federation where the language of the title nation doesn't have any official status," says Matveyeva, alluding to other tongues, such as Buryat, in Buryatia, and Tatar, in Tatarstan. "In the Republic of Karelia, Karelian is a language of [grandmothers] and [grandfathers]. Much more needs to be done to make it a language of children."

Sortavala is a sleepy town famous for its quarries, which once provided stone for the majestic palaces of St Petersburg. Today, it is a staging post for those visiting the monastery at nearby Valaam, and somewhere Finns travel to to buy cheap alcohol and Russian petrol.

Sortavala's mid- to late-20th-century history typifies the huge socio-economic changes wrought on Karelia by conflict and subsequent border relocation. It also highlights the post-second world war attitude of Moscow towards the region.

After the Finns were ejected from Sortavala in 1944, many for the second time, the city was quickly repopulated. The new settlers, hailing from all corners of the Soviet Union, set about transforming their new environment's Finnish characteristics. The goal, as in all of the newly acquired Karelian territory, was to transform a multi-ethnic society into one with a homogenous Soviet character.

In the years following the second world war, Soviet men were widely eulogised as warriors. In Sortavala, lying so close to the new Finnish border, this fighting mentality was encouraged, even though most of the town's new inhabitants had never met a Finn.

"The new border was completely off-limits to all ordinary citizens, except those working as guards," says Terehova. "All contact with Finnish citizens was prohibited. While people in Sortavala knew that a different country existed a few kilometres away, and that their town had once been Finnish, anyone discussing the region's Finnish history would have been seriously punished."

It was only in the late 1980s that the border was re-opened and Finns could see what had become of their former territory. In many respects, the Finnish Karelia they had cherished had disappeared.

Since the early 90s, the cross-border relationship in Karelia has been one of cautious yet burgeoning interaction, driven by a growing recognition of economic interdependence and shared cultural values. Border towns such as Sortavala have transformed themselves from garrisons into regional centres for trade and tourism.

In 1995, Finland joined the European Union and a number of cultural projects in the Republic of Karelia have since received EU funding, including one to preserve the region's beautiful wooden architecture.

"The Republic of Karelia has many traditional wooden buildings, some of which date back hundreds of years," says Vasiljev. "During Soviet times, these buildings were neglected, and some destroyed. Those left deserve our protection. A place without a past has no future."

Vasiljev's village of Rubchoila - home to one of the best-preserved clusters of Karelian wooden architecture - now has a cultural centre.

"We teach the tourists who come here about life on this ancient land and how to cook the traditional dishes of Karelia."

Increasing cross-border opportunities, such as the chance to live and study in Finland, have also prompted those in the Republic of Karelia to look over the border.

"Today, far more young people here study Finnish than Karelian," says Irina Surjalainen, a language teacher at Gymnasium No17, in Petrozavodsk. "Many parents push for Finnish classes because they realise it might be useful in their children's futures. Half of the senior class here went on to study at a Finnish university last year."

In Finland, the Karelian issue is still high on the public agenda.

"A poll in 2004 found 38 per cent of Finnish people support the return of Karelia [to Finland]," says Veikko Saksi - general secretary of Pro Karelia, a Finnish irredentist group - of a survey conducted by newspaper and research institute MC-Info Oy. "When the ceded territory is returned, the culture of 1939 will obviously not be woken again. But the current western Finnish culture and language will become a part of life there."

Since the 50s, the Finnish government has made repeated attempts to discuss the return of ceded Karelian land with Moscow. The response, unsurprisingly, has been consistently and overwhelmingly negative, Russian President Vladimir Putin going so far as to claim recently that the border agreed with Finland in 1917 was a "Bolshevik mistake".

"I think most of our 30,000 league members would be satisfied with greater cultural cooperation and freer movement [i.e. fewer border and visa checks] in Russian Karelia," says Marjo Matikainen-Kallstrom, chair of the Karelian League, a collection of 500 societies comprised chiefly of former evacuees. "We can dream, of course, but we should also be realistic."

While Karelia has always been seen as a utopia by the Finns, Russians do not hold such romantic notions. With the opening of borders, however, both countries increasingly understand the reality of the Karelian territory: a Finnish past, a Russian present.

As Russia has opened up to the world in the post-Soviet era, it has begun to reconsider its national identity, with many citizens showing a growing interest in cultures that pre-date communism and Christianity, as indicated by the burgeoning Karelian tourism industry and performances. This bodes well for the preservation of all things Karelian, across the region.

"There is still a utopia in the Russian part of Karelia, if you know where to look," says Vasiljev. "If we can build momentum behind efforts to preserve Karelian culture here, from language and music to art and architecture, then it will become less hidden. Finns, Karelians, Russians - everyone will be able to enjoy it."

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