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Edward Dutton interviews farmer Eero Pisilä and is impressed by what he has to sell.  Jonku Koulu ‘Really, I’m just open to ideas!’ laughs Eero Pisilä. ‘Whatever people want to make this place into . . . it’s all ready.’
The potato farmer and general potato entrepreneur is talking about the eight hectares (sixteen acres) – including a former school that has been converted into a conference centre-cum-guest house – that somehow came into his possession when he purchased a factory near Pudasjarvi, around an hour’s drive from Oulu.
‘Me and my wife try not to come here very often so that we don’t start to love the place too much!’ he smiles. Eero is certain that he wants to sell the place and there is certainly a great deal to sell.
Silence An hour’s drive from Oulu – the nearest large city – ‘Jonku’ is deep in the heart of the snow-covered Finnish countryside of southern Lapland. As we reach it, we pass picture-book old wooden houses and windmills and mile after mile of forest. When I get out of the car, Eero immediately invites me to ‘listen’. And there is silence. Complete silence . . . something that, in an ever busier Europe, it is very difficult to hear but there’s certainly silence in Jonku.
A friendly dog also comes to welcome us but Eero doesn’t now who he is and proceeds to clear the snow away so that we can have a look at the main building on the sixteen acre sight. There’s been less snow than usual in Oulu but here the snow is deep and the nearby lake frozen over.
We are inside a fifty year-old wooden Primary School; a fifty year-old building being quite old by Finnish standards.  Kitchen
‘It stopped being a Primary school I think about twenty-five years ago,’ Eero tells me. Since then it has been changed into a kind of conference centre with bedrooms that can sleep around fifty people. So large is the school, that Eero is not quite sure how many fireplaces there are and has to go and count.
On the first (ground) floor, we enter a large kitchen all kitted out with modern equipment such as cookers, refrigerators and a dining area. Next door, is a huge school hall with an impressive high ceiling. Going back to the time when it was school, there are portraits of the Finnish presidents hanging on the wall.
‘They’re part of the asking price!’ says Eero. He wants to sell it and everything that I see from the furniture – we sit at a long dining table – to the projector that somebody has installed is part of the package. Next door to the hall is a large ‘games room’ complete with a big table tennis table and other sports equipment but we go back into the hall to talk more about what he wants to do with the place.
Open to Ideas
‘I am open to all ideas,’ Eero emphasises. ‘The place needs someone with an idea and I’m sure that they could really make it work!’
He reels off all that Jonku has going for it. ‘There aren’t many places like this in Central Europe,’ he tells me. ‘Peace, silence, forest . . . lots of activities such as skiing, fishing and hunting and then nearby there’s a beach and a lake is part of this as well.’
The surrounding forest includes reindeer, hare and even a few bears. But though the former school is in the heart of the countryside, it is not particularly far from the town of Pudasjarvi which has a swimming pool and restaurants. Also, it is half an hour from a ski resort which has more restaurants.
Eero is sure that the place could be a very successful venture for somebody with a background in tourism. It could be a kind of guest house for tourists interested in nature and the outdoor activities that the Finnish countryside has to offer all year round.
‘At the moment it would be great for people who love skating!’ he adds. And the facilities for camping are already in place. Also, Finns really celebrate New Year, often by renting out a remote cottage, and it could certainly have potential for that. Nice Business Opportunity ‘I think this place would be a very nice opportunity for a businessman with a good idea,’ he tells me. ‘It could run conferences, retreats . . . groups of tourists.’
‘The buildings are in very good condition,’ he adds. ‘Everything is already set up such as electricity and modern conveniences.’
Eero is also prepared to rent out the place to a businessman on a short-term basis. ‘People could test ideas on a one or two year contract and the rent would be fifteen percent of the asking the price.’
Eero continues the tour. Upstairs are many furnished bedrooms and another kitchen with dining facilities. Then in the basement is a wash room and a very large sauna.
We leave the school and make our way through the snow to a fully furnished bungalow which would be perfect for a couple to live in. This also part of the deal and Eero suggests that whoever buys it ‘could live here . . . at least at first.’ In addition there is another wooden house which is a smoke sauna – as opposed to the electric one in the school. He then takes me to a kind of wooden tipi shaped building with an open chimney where you can have a fire and cook sausages. The benches are complete with reindeer skin covers.  Potatoes a bridge to foreign cultures I am amazed that Eero wants to sell this at all but he is quite insistent and is sure that it may be of interest to a foreign businessman in particular. He’s very interested in other cultures and as part of his potato business he’s worked in Russia, England, the Netherlands and South Africa, is the majority share holder in a potato company and is soon off to a potato conference in Australia. ‘Potatoes have been my bridge to foreign cultures!’ he laughs.
Eero then takes me down to the lake, a short walk through snow-covered scrubland which Eero points out that any buyer could develop if they wished to. The lake, complete with lagoon, is completely frozen over and there are tracks in the snow where people have been skating on it or making their way to the village on the other side.
We return to the car and Eero then drives me across the lake. It seems to take forever and I’m convinced the ice will give way. As we skid on it he remarks, ‘Don’t worry! This car is four wheel drive!’ and we make it across to the picturesque wooden village on the other side.
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