Thread by @virtaava

The extraordinary story from #Winterwar

Once upon a time, there was a 27-year-old Finnish soldier named Aimo Koivunen.
He found himself in a less-than-ideal situation when he was caught in a firefight on a frosty winter’s day in the Lapland wilderness. 1/10

It was 10 am, and Aimo and his unit had been skiing in knee-deep snow for more than two days, so they stopped to take a break and brew some tea. 2/10

But before the water even started to boil, the Russians began to rain bullets and the unit had to quickly pick up their stuff and seek shelter in the woods. 3/10

Aimo was exhausted and starving, so his lieutenant handed him the unit’s supply of Pervitin, aka crystal meth in the form of white pills. 4/10

Aimo was not a fan, but he knew he had to take some if he wanted to avoid collapsing in the snow, so he downed all 30 pills at once –– no chaser. A few minutes later, Aimo was a new man: he was full of energy and strength and he started tripping out pretty badly. 5/10

He talked to absent friends, fought an imaginary wolverine (which was actually a tree branch), shattered his wrist compass and lost his backpack in the process. At some point, he somehow found himself in an abandoned cabin and he decided to start a fire on the floor. 6/10

Soon the whole cabin was on fire and Aimo was trying to sleep while wiggling away from the flames. Aimo continued to black out and snap back to reality, finding himself in places he did not recognize at all, doing weird things he did not remember ever setting up to do. 7/10

He even managed to capture a Siberian jay and ate it raw. After a few days, a group of Finnish soldiers stumbled upon him and promised to send a rescue party. To his utter surprise, a few days later the Finns came to rescue him. 8/10

When Aimo was brought to a field hospital, his heart rate was measured at 200 beats per minute, and he weighed a shocking 43 kilograms (94 pounds). The poor guy had basically turned into a hummingbird. 9/10

#winterwar #pervitin
This thread was inspired by the story from Giulia Montanari medium.com/exploring-hist… 10/10

As it was pointed out this, of course, did not happen during the winter war but in the Continuation War. 🤦