Authors

• Heikkinen, Saara (University of Oulu. Faculty of Humanities)

Keywords

childhood, community behaviour, construction industry, employment abroad, internationalism

Abstract

The data consist of interviews with descendants of Finnish workers in Kostamus. Two of the interviewees had worked in Kostamus themselves. In the interviews, the interviewees recalled their life between the years 1977 and 1985 during the construction project in Kostamus in the Soviet Union, when many Finnish workers were employed there. The majority of the interviewees were either children or young people during the construction project.

In the theme interviews, the interviewees were asked, for example, about their childhood memories during the project, their own relationship with Kostamus and the visits they had made to Kostamus. Additionally, interview questions focused on, for example, how the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union had been visible in the interviewee's family life and whether the time period of the Kostamus project had had a larger meaning in their life. The interviewees were also asked about the 1980 Kostamus bus crash, which left many dead and injured, and whether the crash had closely touched their own family life.

Background information included, among others, the interviewee's gender, year of birth and information on which family members had worked in Kostamus.

The dataset is only available in Finnish.