A lighter is as essential to a soldier as a spoon, pot or water flask. A soldier needs a fire source not only for lighting cigarettes and lighting fires but also for combat purposes. And here the lighter, undoubtedly, takes the upper hand over matches. Its main advantage is that it can be used multiple times. Gasoline was a resource that was always at hand. Most lighters were waterproof, which made them simply indispensable at the front. It was not always possible to get a factory-produced lighter, so soldiers made them from scrap.
The Karelian Front Museum has one such lighter. This is a handcrafted gasoline lighter and an example of Finnish trench art from the beginning of the war. The lighter is very simple — no frills or decorations. Its main function is to produce fire, which it does perfectly. The elongated gasoline tank is made from a spent rifle shell, at the bottom of which is a hole for refilling it with gasoline plugged by a bolt, the shell is topped with a cap with a hole for the wick. A small metal tube is welded on the side. Inside it, is a spring-loaded flint, and a steel serrated wheel is fixed on top of the tube. This part is used to strike sparks and ignite the wick.
This lighter has neither a serial number nor factory-installed specifications. It is impossible to accurately determine the year of its production and the name of the maker, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an interesting story. Its owner was Vladimir Vvedensky, commander of the Karelian partisan detachment “Red Banner” in 1942–1944.
Before the Great Patriotic War, Vvedensky worked as a math teacher later becoming the Ladvinsky school’s principal in the Prionezhsky District. In September 1941, he was sent to the Prionezhsky partisan detachment. He took part in the defense of Petrozavodsk. In April 1942, he was appointed commander of the partisan detachment “Red Banner”. In 1944, once the battles in and around Karelia stopped, Vladimir Vvedensky worked at the National Museum of the Republic of Karelia and then worked in local logging companies. According to Vvedensky, this lighter was his combat trophy.
