Gustav Johannes Winter was born on February 13, 1868, in the city of Lappeenranta to the family of Dr. Edward Winter (1832–1868), a city surgeon, and Henrika Kristina Winter (née Hjallström) from Liperi.

Gustav Winter received an excellent education at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland in Helsinki, graduating on April 25, 1894, with a license to practice medicine in the following specialties: internal medicine, general surgery, ophthalmology, gynecology, anatomical pathology, and medical jurisprudence. On June 27, 1894, Gustav Winter married Aina Kederberg, a native of Joensuu. After obtaining his medical license, in 1895 he moved with his family to Serdobol (Sortavala). The young, broadly skilled specialist became the district doctor here and introduced many advanced innovations to the city’s life at that time. Among them was the first X-ray room in Finland, established in the new district hospital, which was designed and built on his initiative.

As a doctor, he specialized particularly in thyroid gland surgeries and obstetrics, and in 1902 he built a maternity hospital at his own expense, where he served as chief physician until his departure from Sortavala. Under Gustav Winter’s leadership, the number of surgeries at the district hospital increased eightfold. Between 1911 and the 1920s, more than 1,000 patients were treated there.

Gustav Winter was a pioneering physician of his time. He became the first surgeon in Finland specializing in operations on thyroid tumors. Winter’s name was widely known not only in Finland but also in Saint Petersburg. As a person with an active civic stance, besides his medical practice, Gustav Winter actively participated in city life. Working in the city administration, he initiated the construction of water supply and sewage systems and took part directly in organizing the first All-Finland Song Festival.

The chosen venue for the latter was the city park Vakkosalmi — a natural theater with unique acoustic properties — and the creative energy of the festival’s visionary organizers later made it a regular event.

The Winter family lived in a spacious house on the shore of the Vakkolahti Bay of Lake Ladoga, and in 1909, a country mansion in the Art Nouveau style was built for Dr. Winter on the Taruniemi cape, which in Finnish means “fairy tale.” The creator of this masterpiece was Eliel Saarinen — a representative and, in fact, an icon of the fashionable movement “Finnish National Romanticism.” 

“…We return to nature and try to find the simplest application for the components we use… Design should be accessible to everyone…”: Eliel Saarinen, Finnish architect, 1908

Gottlieb Eliel Saarinen was born in 1873 in Rantasalmi. He studied architecture at the Polytechnic Institute and painting at the University of Helsinki, where he met and founded an architectural bureau with Herman Gesellius and Armas Lindgren. The architects received many commissions for private houses, churches, and public buildings. Among them, Saarinen built the Finnish National Museum (1904) and the Helsinki railway station (1904).

True to his principles, Saarinen took into account the landscape features and used local natural materials when constructing Winter’s dacha. The steps of the outdoor stairs are made of Serdobol granite, and rubble stone is embedded in the facing of the plinth and columns.

The first floor is stone and plastered. The wooden walls of the second floor are clad with wooden shingles.

All facades differ from each other. On the south and west sides, the first-floor gallery is echoed by a large balcony on the second floor. On the east side are a bay window and a small balcony. The windows are of various shapes and sizes with small panes. The main entrance portal is framed by a wreath of leaves. The bright fireplace hall, whose interior has remained unchanged since Winter’s time, still welcomes guests.

A tall wooden staircase leads to the second floor, where the doctor’s office, bedroom, living room, and servant quarters were located.

The triumph of natural materials, plant ornamentation, and the elegance of the interior decoration — this is how the “fairy tale” castle appears to its owner, where he would likely spend the best time of his life.

Here, on the rocky Ladoga shore far from the city bustle and worldly cares, Gustav Winter could finally devote his time to his main passion — garden and park architecture. It is fair to say that this passion firmly linked the name of this outstanding man with the harsh beauty of these places, so attractive to the metropolitan intelligentsia. Having studied landscape design in Italy, he created a unique dendropark on the territory of Taruniemi cape. Rare flowers, trees, and shrubs from different corners of the globe were sent to him by grateful patients. Thanks to this, dozens of rare trees and shrubs from America, Japan, Sakhalin, the Caucasus, and China naturally grow around Dr. Winter’s country estate.

Many species of imported plants not only acclimatized but also reproduce. An example is the numerous young Siberian fir trees.

In 1918, Gustav Winter moved to Helsinki, where he continued his private medical practice. The next owners of the estate on the “fairy tale” cape were pharmacist Väinö Durhman and his wife Greta, who highly appreciated the landscape ensemble of Winter’s dacha. Since then, a culture of country recreation has emerged on Taruniemi cape. The century-old history of the “fairy tale” cape and the unique monument of garden and park architecture make this place special. Today, the estate functions as a museum.

Carefully restored interior items from Dr. Winter’s time, archival documents, and old photographs come alive in the guide’s stories.

A separate exhibition is dedicated to the work of the artist-philosopher Nicholas Roerich, who probably often visited Winter and painted about 200 paintings in Karelia.

Sources:

https://tochkanakarte.ru/dachawintera

https://club.silver-ring.ru/articles/dacha-vintera.html

Borisov I.V., Kiryanova V.T. Almanac “Serdobol” No. 4, 2009.