Finnish war reparations to the Soviet Union


War reparations of Finland to the Soviet Union were originally worth US$300,000,000 at 1938 prices. Finland agreed to pay the reparations in the Moscow Armistice signed on 19 September 1944. The protocol to determine more precisely the war reparations to the Soviet Union was signed in December 1944, by the prime minister Juho Kusti Paasikivi and the chairman of the Allied Control Commission for controlling the Moscow Armistice in Helsinki, Andrei Zhdanov.
Finland was originally obliged to pay $300,000,000 in gold to be paid in the form of ships and machinery, over six years. The Soviet Union agreed to prolong the payment period from six to eight years in late 1945. In summer 1948 the sum was cut to $226,500,000. The last dispatched train of the deliveries paying the war reparations crossed the border between Finland and the Soviet Union on 18 September 1952, in Vainikkala railway border station. Approximately 340,000 railroad carloads were needed to deliver all reparations.
The authority responsible for deliveries, and also organising production agreements with the manufacturers according to the protocols, was Sotakorvausteollisuuden valtuuskunta, the delegation of the war reparations industry. The preliminary committee was established on 9 October 1944. It was chaired by the industrialist Walter Gräsbeck, with Jaakko Rautanen as secretary, and Gunnar Jaatinen, Juho Jännes, Johan Nykopp, Arno Solin, and Wilhelm Wahlforss as members.

Some deliveries

Electrical

Lokomo together with Tampella produced 525 narrow gauge locomotives, PT-4 series.

[Valmet]

Finland delivered to the Soviet union 619 vessels of which 119 were used. 104 vessels were commercial ones.

[Icebreaker]s

All the schooners were mainly 300-dead-weight-tonne schooners, of which 91 were delivered to the Soviet Union.

[Ship industry]

Puutalo

For delivering the needed amount of the wooden houses to the Soviet Union, a joint venture, Puutalo Oy, was established. The last delivery of wooden houses took place on 28 January 1948. The deliveries started on 22 December 1944. Altogether the floor area of the delivered wooden houses was 840,000 m2. The war reparation itself contributed 177,000 m2 as compensation for the German property, which Finland did not hand over to the Soviet Union. This consisted of 37,208 railway wagons, which as a single train would have been 335 km long.