Imatra medal

In 1997, the Imatra city council decided to commission the Imatra medal in honor of Imatra's 50th anniversary. The medal was designed by sculptor Veikko Nuutinen. The Imatra medal is awarded annually to a generally respected person who has achieved success with his activities for the benefit of Imatra and the people of Imatra, for example in the area of ​​culture, science, sports, social work, economic life or community work. The awarding of the medal is decided by the city government, to which proposals can be made about the recipients of the medal.

The first recipient of the Imatra medal

The first Imatra medal was handed out at the celebration meeting of the Imatra city council on 22.12.1997 December XNUMX city councilor SpongeBob Tiilikainen. City councilor Tiilikainen has significantly influenced the well-being and development of the township and city of Imatra by acting in Imatra's municipal life and national politics. Paavo Tiilikainen was also a member of the first town council. Because of this, city councilor Paavo Tiilikainen was the self-righteous recipient of the first Imatra medal.

Medalists:

• 2022 Kari Ahonen, which is one key person, thanks to which Imatra's visibility in the world, for example as a ski sports resort, is exceptional. Ahonen has done and continues to do a wonderful job as a coach, organizer of skiing competitions, and inspirer of young people. He does not put himself on a pedestal, but acts. This way of working has brought joy to the entire region.
• 2021 Taisto Kainulainen, Taisto Kainulainen has significantly influenced the development of the tourism industry in Imatra and the entire region for 30 years. In addition to his business activities, he has acted as the chairman of the Imatra home region association and the Finnish Tourist Association, for example. Taisto Kainulainen founded the Vuoksi ferry in 1992. In 1997, the business expanded to Vuoksi fishing park. Varpasaari has become a genuine recreation oasis for tourists and locals, whose range of services has been constantly evolving. The company has grown and is now being run by the third generation.
• 2020 Jani Valkeapää, IPV's sports director, who has become known for the most imaginative ideas in recent years. In the summer, in addition to baseball, we have gone skiing, went to play baseball in Spain and had to try ski jumping, but this summer Korona messed up the plan. Through his own activities, Jani Valkeapää has taken IPV and Imatra to the world and has been creating an image of an agile and open-minded city.
• 2019  Group Helenius, benefactor. At the turn of the millennium, Helenius started offering Christmas meals to poor and lonely people. From the beginning, the place has been the lower hall of the Imatrankoski church. In his first years, he also collected the food necessary for the meal himself, but nowadays the congregation pays for the supplies and Helenius and his helpers are responsible for organizing the feast.
• 2018 Mika Albertsson, Mirja Borgström, Juha Kallio. In the anniversary year, three distinguished people from Imatra were awarded. Mika Albertsson receives a medal for his activities for national defense. He has also been starting veterans' aid activities and cherished the legacy of war veterans. Albertsson has been involved in bringing almost 300 heroes who died to be buried in Finland, and thanks to his presentation, the restoration of the heroes' gravestones in the three cemeteries of Imatra has been started. Mirja Borgström, a long-term cultural activist, has made Imatra famous, among other things, as the city's theater secretary, marketing manager, cultural executive director and currently as an entrepreneur. Mirja Borgström is the founder of Imatra Ballet and has brought international dance groups to Imatra. Track motorcyclist Juha Kallio contributed significantly to the re-emergence of Imatranajo with his own activities. On his initiative, the Imatra races were revived in Imatra as street track races, when Kallio, while driving on Mansaar, realized what a great thing street races are. The coming of the rides again has significantly enlivened Imatra's summer.
• 2017 Riitta Uosukainen, State Councillor. A distinguished social influencer who has always kept his own city in the spotlight and actively participated in its activities despite his duties at the state level.
• 2016  Martti Hietanen, wood carver. Hietanen has been carving his wood works for decades.
• 2015 Veikko Puska, local historian. Puska, who prefers to use the title of history buff, has been collecting and recording local history for decades, and has written several books about the history of Imatra.
• 2014 Kyösti Kallinen, swimming coach Kallinen receives the Imatra medal for valuable youth work and meritorious coaching. The girls of the expensive team Lotta Nevalainen, Moona Koski and Carita Luukkanen have been successful in prestigious competitions. Kallinen considers himself a result-oriented coach. He started his hobby as an adult. In addition to swimming coaching, Kallinen enjoys stamp collecting, stage dancing and a variety of sports.
• 2013 Annikka Taitto, volunteer active. Taitto has been influencing children's well-being through volunteer work for a long time. Annikka Taito's way is to motivate people to do things for a good cause, and to do good together with people. He has been a long-term board member and chairman of Imatran Seudun Pelastakaa Lapset ry, a non-fiction writer, a kindergarten teacher, a master of political science, a social worker and a volunteer involved in many activities.
• 2012 Pentti Hytönen, music enthusiast, sportsman. He is one of the founding members of the Imatra Big Band, has played in various ensembles since he was a teenager, and has influenced e.g. The birth of the Imatra Big Band Festival. In addition, he is known by everyone as an enthusiastic sportsman and a gifted joke teller in addition to playing.
• 2011 Birgitta and Lars Buttenhoff, restaurateurs. For decades, Buttenhoff has been the gem of Imatra's food culture, which is also known throughout Finland as a place where you can get very good food and service. The restaurant is Birgitta and Lars Buttenhoff's life's work, which has been and is part of the lives of the people of Imatra. They created their restaurant as a place where everyone is welcome to eat good food.
• 2010 Urpo Ikävalko, active in motor sports and local history enthusiast. Ikävalko has had a long career as a successful entrepreneur from Imatra. He has been involved in motor sports for a long time, be it motorcycling, boating or driving. He is also a local history enthusiast who has collected a whole museum of objects and machines used in agriculture, and he also has his own museum for old cars and motorcycles.
• 2009 Jorma Piispanen, theater director, the driving force of amateur theater. He is known for his long-term, unafraid of challenges, guidance and education work with children and young people. Over the years, over two thousand children and young people from Imatra have acted in the youth Theater Irti, founded by him in 1993, and in the children's Theater Pippur, founded in 1995.
• 2008 Tapio Suni, Pentti Niinimäki and Leena and Hannu Aarnio.  Three Imatra medals were awarded in honor of Imatra's 60th anniversary. Social counsellor Tapio Suni is a pioneer in intellectual disability work in Imatra and throughout Finland. On his initiative, a network of service homes has been born in our country, and he has also been involved in our neighboring areas, and largely based on his ideas, the Radost activity center for disabled children was also built in Svetogorsk. In 1968, Suni founded a support association for intellectually disabled people in Imatra. Since then, he was elected the honorary chairman of Tukiliitto. In 1988, Tukiliitto decided to start implementing a service home and home service program, the purpose of which was to build service homes for people with intellectual disabilities living at home and to produce temporary care services for family members caring for people with intellectual disabilities at home. For this purpose, the Developmentally Disabled Service Foundation was established, with Tapio Suni elected as its chairman. Local researcher Pentti Niinimäki did groundbreaking work in genealogy. He founded the Imatran Seudun Sukututkijat ry in 1989 and served as the club's vice-president from the beginning until 2007, when he was elected the club's honorary president. The people of Imatra know Hannu and Leena Aarnion as great nature lovers who study nature and have written numerous books about it. They have also inspired several generations as geography and biology teachers to get to know nature and everything it contains. They have also mapped the nature of Imatra and made it familiar to the people of Imatra.
• 2007 Hannu Sopanen, Director Musics. Hannu Sopanen has had a long career in music at Imatra. He was known as a conductor, trumpeter and kantelist. Hannu Sopanen started his career in Imatra as the congregation's conductor and moved from there to the city's music director. For years he was the conductor of the Imatra Big Band and influenced the birth of the Imatra Big Band festival and was the program director of the festival for years.
• 2006 Far Evalahti, construction consultant. Kauko Evälahti has concretely left his mark on Imatra's milieu, as he has built, among other things, 3000 new apartments in Imatra.
• 2005 Anna Lahtinen, dance teacher, principal, entrepreneur. Anna Lahtinen is the founder and principal of Tanssistudio Jam from Imatra. Since 1981, he has guided the people of Imatra into the world of dance. Anna Lahtinen started in 1981 at Imatra Labor College as a lesson teacher teaching, among other things, modern dance and jazz dance. In 1995, he founded Tanssistudio Jami. In 1990, Lahtinen was recognized as the cultural act of the year by Imatra's cultural activities, in 1991 he was chosen as Imatra's Inker, and in 1997 he received the city's art award.
• 2004 Sakari Tossavainen, home region expert and author. Sakari Tossavainen has been collecting material about Imatra for years and has e.g. a collection of more than 10 Imatra-themed postcards and photos. Sakari Tossavainen is not satisfied with just collecting pictures and labels, but also finds out their backgrounds and then writes interesting stories about them.
• 2003 Reino Arponen, sportsman, influencer. Reino Arponen has made a significant life's work in sports and above all in wrestling. He has also been influential in the city council and board and was, among other things, the long-term chairman of the sports committee. Reino Arponen has been active in Imatra's Front veterans, being until this year the president of the association.
• 2002 Ritva Väänänen, the poet, playwright and recitation artist received the medal in 2002. For almost fifty years, Ritva Väänänen has made Imatra and Karelianness known all over the world and enlivened the cultural life of Imatra with her husband Yrjö Väänänen.
• 2001 Reino Iävalko , an idea junkie. Reino "Retu" Ikävalko has become known for his crazy ideas for Imatra, his latest feat has been establishing and maintaining the Veteran's Home Museum.
• 2000 Alvi Koskelle, talk active. He has had a decisive influence on the breaking down of sport barriers in Imatra by promoting cooperation between clubs. In addition, Alvi Koski has always been there when volunteer work was needed, and not just in sports.
• 1999 Jaakko Hulkkonen, Director Musics. He has been renewing and developing Imatra choirs and music life. In addition to choir activities, he is also known nationally for his composition and arrangement work, which has also made Imatra famous.
• 1998 Katja Attila, Pentti Halle, Lempi Holmberg, Tauno Iso-Aho and Paul Jyllinvuori. In honor of the anniversary, the city government decided to award five medals to deserving people from Imatra at once. Katja Attila has been significantly promoting Imatra's tourism and twin city relations with Salzgitter. He and Paul Jyllinvuori are also the first Imatra travel guides. Pentti Halle has been a significant part in promoting the paper and cardboard industry in the Imatra region. Favorite Holmberg has excelled in exercise and has been involved in women's gymnastics for decades and made it famous at Imatra. Tauno Iso-Aho has been the driving force behind the Imatra art association and has been influencing the shaping of Imatra's art life, and in addition, he has immortalized Imatra's landscapes and buildings in many of his works. Paul Jyllinvuori was in the 50s starting a guide activity in Imatra and he has been involved in work in the Imatra home region. Paul Jyllinvuori's extensive photo collections of Imatra and the people of Imatra have preserved Imatra's way of life for future generations.
• 1997 Paavo Tiilikainen, city councillor