Aspö is a small village on the Aspö Island in

Väståboland Pargas ( fi, Parainen) is a town and municipality of Finland, in the Archipelago Sea, the biggest archipelago in the world by the number of islands, 50,000. The big limestone mine in Pargas is the base of the main industry and except for the centr ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. Until 2009 it belonged to the municipality of Korpo. Its

Finnish-language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish). ...

name is Haapasaari, although this name is seldom used. The village is known for its white limestone church that has a red brick roof. The current church was built in 1955–1956; however, a church has existed in the place since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

. The old church was destroyed in a storm in 1949.

History

The commercially seafaring Vikings landed on Aspö during the

Viking period The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Germ ...

, 800 - 1050 AD. In the 13th century it also served as a harbour for traders. The trade route was laid between

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, Estonia and Denmark. In the beginning of the 20th century only about 30 people lived on Aspö. Now there are only about 10 people. During First World War, World War I until 1917, Aspö served as Russian naval military watchpost. In 1944 it served as the German navy base as the Germans were not allowed to anchor on Åland proper. In the 1910s the Russians had a patrol station on the island. In the 1940s it was used as a harbour for submarines. On the contrary to the year of 1941, on 1944 the Finns allowed instead of Åland proper, the German navy to use only Aspö and Nötö as the naval base ''Rotbuche'' as there was a suspicion of the Tanne West operation which would have led to the German occupation of Åland Islands. The question became actual from 20 June to 27 June, when the president of the republic of Finland, mr. Risto Ryti and the foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop negotiated the terms continuing the war after the German arms export embargo in since April, 1944 due to the negotiations of peace with the Soviet union. A heavy naval detachment was sent via Utö, Finland, Utö towards Aspö. A ship called M/S Eivor transports passengers between Aspö and Nagu, Finland, Nagu. Many men on Aspö work as maritime pilots and the women serve on the tourist branch. As for the tourist attractions there is a new chapel built 1955–1956. The chapel has been built several times since 1696, in the years 1728, 1850 and 1905. Aspö-Eik had played folk music which tradition is taken care of Bruno Johansson and his son Tore Johansson. Milking ended in the 1970s, but afterwards there has been broad for the summer times from 10 to 15 cows for tourists to see.

References

Pargas Villages in Finland {{WesternFinland-geo-stub es:Aspö