At the onset of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War in 1939, one regiment of the Red Army’s 155th Division advanced via Parissavaara toward Kallioniemi,, reaching Kallioniemi late in the first week of December 1939. 

The characteristics of the terrain combined with a maze of waterways that posed an obstacle to the attacker favoured the defenders, who managed to halt the enemy assault on the banks of the Koitajoki River at Kallioniemi. The Russian troops established a billeting area on Parissavaara hill on either side of the road. 

Since the Red Army was lacking cardboard or canvas tents, field stoves and other winter camp gear, men had to dig into the frozen ground. They carved dugouts and pits that gave a modicum of shelter from the elements, and often roofed them with just a single layer of laths and tree branches. However, some constructions were nearly comparable to Finnish timber-shored underground accommodation shelters. The Russian forces also built stables, machine gun nests and other structures. 

Remains of 290 dugout shelters of various sizes have been identified at Parissavaara, the volume of the smallest of them barely exceeding one cubic metre. Soldiers converted metal cartridge boxes and buckets into rudimentary stoves and tried to fire them with wet wood chips and freshly cut twigs. 

On the orders of Colonel Paavo Talvela, two Finnish battalions attacked Parissavaara on 22 December 1939 but failed to dislodge the Russian troops. The attack was called off, and the battalions withdrew to their point of departure by the following morning. 

The Russian forces also built gun emplacements at Parissavaara, from where they could fire on the Finnish defenders at Kallioniemi.