About Us
We value old Karelian traditions and we want to keep countryside alive. Ylapiha Farm cares precious cultural environment. There is a lot of work. Old buildings must repair continually. Ylapiha fields must mow down once a year, better would be two times. EU:s allowance is small, because we have so little area. Our goal is to keep our fields, not to afforest them. On our fields grows many rare plants for excample the vicious trap (Botrychium lunaria). Nearest findings from us are Koli Nationalpark and Naapurivaara Sotkamo. They both are one hundred kilometres from us. Ylapiha is the only farm in Sivakka village. Ylapiha folk gives their living other ways. We love to live here - middle of the countryside and taking care of our magnificent nature. Our incomes don't last this everything. Ylapiha Farm is a way of living, not to make money. We gratefully accept donations to make true of our vision.
The center of our action is an old log house which was build on our field in 2015. There was another bigger old main building of Hakkinen family since this. The building was given to our relatives in 1950´s. The new hundred years old building is from Kerimäki, near Savonlinna. It take one year to build that house and it cost very much money. We didn't got a sponsor to our project and the carpenters took too much money
Somebody asked is this Ylapiha Farm a fake site. No, it is not. Our English language is not very good because our native language is not English. Our Finnish name is Yläpihan tila. You can read us more www.ylapihantila.com in Finnish. Also our home-village Sivakka has now own webside www.sivakka-village.webnode.com.
Important targets
These are the most important targets we need support.
1. We have broken down brushwood from our old fields. Now they must mow down for a special machine and it costs much. If we don't mow down them, fields go bad. In that case the Finnish law says you must afforest land again if the forestry people like that the area was previous forest.
2. Our old log buildings needs repair. Local ELY-Center helps a little if they have money. There is an economical challenges in Finland now. If we ask money from foundations etc. our CV is not enough. In Finland the population is very highly educated. EU don't help either because we have not enough land. So the most of repairing costs fall to our pay.
3. Our home place Sivakka is a very old village. Here finds many worthy places who needs care. Sivakka has been known for splendid views. These lands has been cultivated for generations. Now the fields has been afforested. The land owners live in towns and they don't need flower fields far away. So they let to afforest valuable cultural environment. If we had money, we could try to buy/rent these afforested areas and clear them back to a traditional landscape. But this is very hard work to do.
DONATE TO OUR WORK
You can give donation to our important work. Even an little amount will help a lot when it directs to right place.
Our Bank Account is Yläpihan tila SBANFIHH FI40 3939 0057 0842 95. We thank you for your donation.
