
Säkkijärven polkka - luu
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4kkij%C3%A4rven_polkka#Military_use
======
Ndymium
The English Wikipedia page, to me, seems to suggest that the record was played
to explode the mines in a controlled fashion. In fact, according to Finnish
Wikipedia, it was used to scramble the Soviet radio signals to prevent the
mines from exploding, and there was a sort of radio war going on for a while.

This is the specific record that apparently was used:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx1zl_sVTI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZx1zl_sVTI)

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ashtonkem
The English page does say “jamming”, but I too originally read it as if they
were trying to detonate them prematurely.

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tgsovlerkhgsel
When I read "mine", I thought of anti-personnel landmines and was confused why
you'd want to radio-trigger those.

These were demolition charges designed to destroy objects like bridges.
According to [https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-Finnish-army-
used-...](https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-Finnish-army-used-the-
song-S%C3%A4kkij%C3%A4rven-Polkka-to-prevent-the-detonation-of-Soviet-radio-
controlled-mines-during-the-recapture-of-Viipuri-in-the-Continuation-
War/answer/Alexander-Denisov-9), there were a total of 25 such mines hidden,
with each containing hundreds to thousands of kilograms of explosives.

[https://www.standingwellback.com/russian-ww2-radio-
controlle...](https://www.standingwellback.com/russian-ww2-radio-controlled-
explosive-device/) is also worth a read.

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Legogris
Another Finnish polka more known through Internet culture[0] is Ievan polka:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck)

I remember having the original Flash clip on loop on for entire days back
when.

[0]: Leekspin:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-N1yJyrQRY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-N1yJyrQRY)

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krebs_liebhaber
The Finns contributed more to early Internet culture than we give them credit
for. They invented IRC, and about half of the weirder memes on 4chan.

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saq
And Linux

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vsipuli
And Git (kind of, although that happened after Linus moved away from Finland)

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Eyght
MySQL in the same vein.

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welfare
MySQL is actually of Swedish origin.

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cfinnberg
Well, at least Michael Widenius, the most visible head of MySQL and one of two
cofounders, is finnish. He also created the MySQL's fork MariaDB. Both names
came from Michael's daughters My and Maria.

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Pandabob
As a finn, I did not expect to see this on the front page of HN. Ever.

But did not know about the military use of the song. Very interesting.

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stevekemp
As somebody who moved to Finland, and hasn't learned too much Finnish, I was
just pleased I recognized the language and the words themselves!

Interesting read though, regardless.

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9nGQluzmnq3M
Sakkijarven polkka is (well, was) also famous as one of standard Nokia
ringtones:
[https://youtu.be/UYSdiQl8BQY?t=54](https://youtu.be/UYSdiQl8BQY?t=54)

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alkonaut
Interesting. This is basically an early version of the phone bomb where you
get a burner phone and just call the number of the sim card to blow it up.
Being able to pull that off in the 40's was impressive.

Hard to say what use it has though? Normally a "mine" is something that is
triggered by an event such as a person or vehicle passing. Setting one off
remotely or on a timer isn't useful.

If the mines were used to rig specific infastructure such as railways or
bridges then I can see the use (blow specific bridges at specific points in
time, without having to send saboteurs). I remember practicing bridge
destruction in the army using dozens of tank mines, simply because they were
readily available and easily handled explosives.

~~~
doikor
These were "mines" used to blow up bridges, roads and railroads. The bigger
ones had thousands of kg of explosives. So more like remote demolition over
radio. Idea being that you could destroy the critical infrastructure after
retreating from the area and if you had vision on it when someone was on it
like the first one that killed a couple officers (killed a major who was the
chief lawyer for the Finnish General Staff)

Modern equivalent would be cellphone bombs in roads in Afghanistan/Iraq.

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elgfare
Wikipedia articles are quickly becoming my favorite type of HN link.

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leo150
Eurobeat remix:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxx5p8KnZ3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxx5p8KnZ3w)

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tryauuum
> These mines were set off when a three-note chord was played on the frequency
> the radio was tuned to, causing three tuning forks (of which each mine had a
> unique combination) to vibrate at once.

so, ehm, what was the soviets' plan? to blow them all at once when the city
would be taken by finns?

russian wikipedia page says the plan was to blow them periodically. But it
doesn't make much sense, how would the soviets control which mines to blow?
hard to imagine they would be aiming radio signal somehow

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Each mine could be set to a different combination of three trigger
frequencies. There weren't many of them in place (I'll write another top-level
comment about this - edit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089418](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23089418)).

~~~
kmill
Adding to that, even just six frequencies to choose from would let you have
twenty distinct targets. (Six choose three.)

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swebs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMszu_VgMfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMszu_VgMfY)

~~~
michalu
Nice song. Finnish language is part of the Uralic group of languages Finno-
Ugric spoken by Hungarians and Estonians too.

These languages don't belong to Indo-Iranian group like every other language
in Europe.

I like to speculate the language came to northern Europe with Huns who,
according to Procopius (I believe it was him) controlled Scandinavia too and
there are many sagas of Norsemen fighting Huns there, such as Hlöðskviða.

The modern Finns show Nordic genetic, yet the language is Uralic and perhaps
the first Finns were only the ruling class as it was often the case with Huns.

Obviously, there are other more widely accepted theories.

~~~
vesinisa
Sorry but that is quack. Replace "Finnish" with "Aryan" and it's almost
directly from the 1930s Nazi occultism book.

~~~
swebs
>Aryan language is part of the Uralic group of languages Finno-Ugric spoken by
Hungarians and Estonians too.

???

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vesinisa
No, I mean more generally terms like "Nordic genetics" and proposing fringe
linguistic and ethnic theories about modern nationalities.

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michalu
I'm sorry to ruin your imaginations but genetics, linguistics and history are
real sciences concerned with tangible facts. Unlike some political theories
with no right to claim credibility other than calling themselves "modern."
Aryan (term I didn't use) simply means Iranian, regardless of whether nazis
abused the term or not. You may find it useful to know that.

~~~
philangist
I do agree with your more general point but I think we shouldn't dismiss
changes in usages of words over time. Aryan doesn't simply mean Iranian in a
modern western context, just like the swastika isn't just a sign from Buddhism
or Hinduism. Both have strong associations with one of the most defining wars
of the 20th century and the genocidal regime that started said war. That can't
be easily ignored.

~~~
ganzuul
The Black Death killed a hundred million.

Blood flows like a river.

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afandian
If you're unfamiliar with Finnish traditional music, they have some great
polkas. Frigg are good fun.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lw3hp9q7M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77lw3hp9q7M)

~~~
drran
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yh9i0PAjck)

~~~
afandian
THAT polka.

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bjowen
... hey! [https://youtu.be/q98Y86jfXaY](https://youtu.be/q98Y86jfXaY)

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paweladamczuk
This reminded me about the Ride of the Valkyries scene in Apocalypse Now.

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CHB0403085482
I guess you haven't heard the action-scene version of Sakkijarven polkka on a
kantele;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1PAy4JZfrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1PAy4JZfrE)

Bonus violin edition by Linda Lampenius;
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Skam8GUUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Skam8GUUU)

