Finland was forced to accept peace terms signed in Moscow on March 12, 1940. The USSR pushed its border west, gaining a large slice of Finnish territory and much of the country's industrial capacity.

However, the war dealt a massive blow to the USSR's reputation as world opinion largely supported the Finnish cause. The country was expelled from the League of Nations.

In spite of this, historian Yuri Kilin says Finland too had been nursing plans of an attack against the Bolsheviks.

“Although Finland didn't start the war, it had long wanted to capture some Soviet land. The maps were drawn as early as 1919. Finland was never just an innocent victim. It simply didn't plan to attack the USSR alone,” he said.

In 1941, soon after Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, the Finns regained their land and moved into Soviet territory. They set up several concentration camps in the city of Petrozavodsk. Out of its 20,000 civilians, 4,000 perished.

Lydia Sinukova was 14 at the time, and was one of the prisoners. Now 82 she still remembers the shock she felt then.

She recalled: “We woke up in the morning and there was barbed wire all around the city. People were panicking. My mother soon fell ill and was taken to a hospital for prisoners. Two weeks later I was given a scrap of paper saying she had died.”

After World War II the 1940 border was restored. Now, 70 years after the Winter War, enthusiasts take part in reconstructions of the events, saying the key is to remember and come to terms with this bitter part of Russia's past.