Rayakoski

It is included in the list of settlements of the Murmansk region prone to the threat of forest fires ^[2] .

The history of the village of Rayakoski began in 1955 , thanks to the construction of a hydroelectric station on the Pasvik river.

The valley of this river is a junction of three state borders. Paz separates Russia in the far northwest of Finland and Norway . The flora and fauna of this place is unique. Here are the northernmost pine forests in Europe. This is a protected natural area for all three states. The Paz river originates in the Finnish lake Inari , which is about 80 km long and 50 km wide, a huge number of rivers flow into it, and only one flows out.

This territory from 1920 to 1944 belonged to Finland. In 1944, an armistice agreement was concluded between the USSR and Great Britain, on the one hand, and Finland, on the other, on which this territory was transferred to the USSR.

The Finnish Sámi have long lived in the Pasvik valley. At a place located a few kilometers from Rayakoski, from 1920 to 1944 there was a Finnish village of Nautsi . In this place, one of the oldest residents of the village, Valery Alexandrovich Dolotov (worked at the Paz HPP Cascade from 1962 to 2009 ), found household items: nails, horseshoes (hand-forged), an old stove with handmade patterns, even an unusual mask carved from wood , ancient coins. The oldest of them dates back to 1807 .

The appearance of the first hydroelectric power station on the Pasvik river in the village of Janiskoski in 1942 , which was built to supply electricity to nickel mines, was also associated with the Finnish period of history. In 1944, during the retreat, the Germans blew up the dam, completely disabling it.

The history of the creation of the Cascade of Paz HPPs begins in 1944, when Matvey Isaakovich Zarhi arrived there, who then served in the engineering units of the 14th Army to determine the damage caused and the possibility of restoring the Yaniskoski HPP . It was he who in the summer of 1944 noticed a very strange flood and decided to explore the course of the Pasvik river. His labors were successful, he discovered 7 powerful rapids, on which subsequently the Cascade of Paz HPPs was built. His recommendations formed the basis for the plant reconstruction project, the development of which was entrusted to the Finnish company Imatran-Voima. The Finns also financed the construction at the expense of German funds invested in Finnish banks and transferred after the war in favor of the USSR. In April 1950, the Yaniskoski hydroelectric station was restored and began to supply electricity to the Pechenganikel plant , which was restored after the war. By the way, the station itself was then part of the plant.

The same Finnish company, but already under a contract with the Ministry of Energy of the USSR, in 1955 the Rayakoski hydroelectric station was built. The company designed and built the village of Janiskoski and part of the village of Rayakoski with a club and the first school building.

After 4 years, the Kaitakoski hydroelectric power station was put into operation - the most low-power in Cascade, its two hydropower units have a total capacity of 11.2 thousand kilowatts, it is the highest in the Paz hydropower plants in Cascade, in fact it supports Lake Inari and is mainly used as a regulating hydroelectric power station in Cascade .

The fourth station of the Cascade - Borisoglebskaya was built by order of our country by the specialists of the Norwegian company Norelectro. It was launched in 1963, for many years it was the northernmost power station in the world and only later ceded this pedestal to the power industry of Yakutia .

Seven years later, in 1970, the last Khevoskoski hydroelectric power station was built . It was created according to a Russian project, Russian enterprises supplied and installed equipment, and construction work was carried out by a Norwegian company. With its launch, our country made full use of the river’s water resources in the area allotted to us, and after the launch of two more Norwegian hydroelectric power stations ( Skugfoss in 1964 and Melkefoss in 1978 ), the river’s resources were used almost 100%. The power of Paz HPPs increases as they approach the mouth of the river. Therefore, the lower hydroelectric power station - Borisoglebskaya - is five times larger than the highest - Kaitakoski.

HPP-6 in the village of Rayakoski is the leading one. From her panel, all five hydroelectric power stations are controlled.

Paz hydropower plants supply energy not only to Russia, but, according to intergovernmental agreements, 85% of all electricity produced in the Cascade is exported to Norway and Finland.

As far back as the thirties, geological studies established that the Kola Peninsula’s subsoil does not have any significant reserves of mineral fuel, so it did not seem economically feasible to base the development of the Zapolyarye’s energy on long-distance fuel. The main source of energy for the development of industry, cities and towns of the Murmansk region, could only be the resources of the rivers of the Kola Peninsula. Potential hydropower reserves of the region’s rivers are estimated at approximately 16 billion kWh per year.

The population living in the village, according to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census , is 238 people, of which 128 are men (53.8%) and 110 women (46.2%) ^{[4] [5]} .

The village is divided into two parts:

• “Finnish village” - residential buildings, a boiler room and some other buildings built by Finnish builders under an agreement with the USSR in 1956-1957 for workers of the Rayakos hydroelectric station.
• “Norwegian village”: in the 1960s , during the construction of the Khevoskos HPP, it was decided not to lay a new village, but to add new buildings on the site of the Rayakoski village. This "Norwegian village" is a four-apartment residential building with electric heating and a school built in the "Norwegian" style (designed for 150 students, the actual number of students is 26).

Infrastructure

The village has a school, a first-aid post, a club, a shop, a post office, and a hotel with 8 beds. The Rayakoski - Nickel bus runs once a week.

Others

• Rayakos hydroelectric station
• Ecological center of the reserve "Pasvik"

• Rayakoski website
• Site about Rayakoski and everything connected with it