Kalevalsky National Park

Kalevalsky National Park covers one of the last old-growth boreal pine forest in Europe. It is situated on the border between Russia and Finland at about the midpoint from south to north. The park is located in the Republic of Karelia, 30 km north of the town of Kostomuksha. The Kalevala, an epic poem of Finnish and Karelian oral folklore, was drawn from this region. The traditional people of the area include the Sami people and the Karelians.

The territory of the park is on the southeast of the Baltic Shield, which contains the oldest rocks in Europe , covered by a very young layer of glacial deposits. During the recent Pleistocene glaciation, heavy continental ice sheets scoured and depressed the region, leaving as they melted a flat landscape of lakes and rivers. The western portion of the park is mostly flat forest, while the eastern section has more hills and ridges; the altitude in the park ranges between 105 meters and 278 meters. Due to the valuable mineral profile, mining is the main industry in the area, with logging also important.

Wikipedia