From Shimmering Waters — Virrat in Pictures and Words 1867–2018

Kimaltelevilta vesiltä — Virrat kuvin ja sanoin 1867–2018 (From Shimmering Waters — Virrat in Pictures and Words) is a 338-page illustrated local history commissioned by the City of Virrat to mark the 150th anniversary of the municipality’s founding.

The book was co-authored by Matti J. Kankaanpää and Lea Lerkkanen. The title refers both to the waterways that characterise the Virrat landscape and to the painter and photographer Into Konrad Inha, whose work in the region in the late 19th century gave Virrat its distinctive artistic identity. The Into Centre (Into-keskus), opened at Killinkoski in April 2017, was the cultural centrepiece of the anniversary year.

The book is structured around three levels: a chronological narrative from the 1860s to the present; a village-by-village survey of all Virrat’s communities; and a survey of the town’s many activities — agriculture, forestry, industry, commerce, services, culture, sport and nature.

The 150-year span is anchored in the 1860s, when Finnish municipalities were separated from parish administration across the country. Without that historical context, many present-day features of Virrat — including the Into Centre — would be difficult to understand. Kankaanpää named the period from the 1870s to the early 1900s “the Inha era” after the artist who made the region famous.

Publisher: City of Virrat. 338 pages.