Elisenvaara was first mentioned as a village within the
pogost of
Kurkiyoki in 1590. The settlement grew around the railroad junction, with railroad connections to
Viipuri,
Sortavala,
Lappeenranta and
Savonlinna. In 1940, in the
Moscow Armistice, Finnish Karelia, along with the Saint Petersburg-Sortavala railroad, was ceded to the
Soviet Union. Connections to Lappeenranta and Savonlinna were cut. The bombing of the Elisenvaara railway station on 20 June 1944, during the final stages of the
Continuation War, was the most fatal bombing in Finnish history; over a hundred civilians were killed when the Soviet air bombs hit a train of
Karelian evacuees. Elisenvaara had the status of
urban-type settlement from 1946 until 1992. == Administrative and municipal status ==