Finland 2023.
After a work event I took some personal days to go to the land of my ancestral heritage. My Great Grandfather left Finland in 1896 for America. I’ve made a casual study of Finland all my life paying extra special attention to the Finns in the Olympics, Finns in world history, Finnish products etc. I traveled to the capital Helsinki, with a fellow employee and we explored the capital for several days and one day out in the country side. What a great experience. The capital was a great city to visit. Lots of history and architecture and culture.
Finland Trip 2023. The Helsinki Cathedral. Wonderful building, active church, the organ was playing when we went in and the acoustics were incredible.
The Rock Church. Another active church, popular to visit. Built into the granite rock, neat ceiling. We arrived and one of the Pastors came out and did a scripture reading. He half sang it and half read it, I had never heard scripture that way before. The history of the church is in one of the photos posted.
As an amateur WW Two Historian (I’m not professional status yet, I only have 2000 hours of study time) and a Finland fan I have studied the Finnish Winter War, 1939-1940, a lot so when I went to Finland one of my main points of interest was to visit any war museums or battle sites. There are limited war museums near Helsinki but the one I found was of particular interest because it highlighted the Finnish war hero and all time sniper Simo Hayha. It’s called the Kollaa Ja Simo Hayha Museo. A 3 hour drive from Helsinki, and it was a beautiful drive into the county. It was small but special and on the day we arrived no one else was there so I got a personal tour of the entire place from one of the employees who spoke English very well. The museum normally receives 4000-5000 visitors a year and its only open during the summer months. See photos. Afterwards we drove a short distance to Simo Hayha’s grave site in a near by church graveyard. The graveyard was also beautiful and so was the church. see photos. Beyond that there is a monument in downtown Helsinki that was placed in 1932 and there is still some damage from Russia bombing the capital in 1939. A picture of Manerheim the Finnish General during the war and then a picture of a blast door form one of the churches we visited. Every building in Helsinki has to have a bomb shelter in it, every building! Its been that way for a long time. At the museum they told me of one of the common Finnish sayings, “All Guns Point East”. The Russians are east!
Finnish Culture. We stopped by the Olympic Stadium, home of the ’52 Summer Olympics. There’s a nice statue of one of the greatest distance runners of all time, Paavo Nurmi, maybe his most impressive stat was that he never lost a 10,000 meter race! He was called the “Flying Finn” or the “Phantom Finn”, as he dominated distance running in the 1920s. Nurmi set 22 official world records at distances between 1500 meters and 20 kilometres, and won nine gold and three silver medals in his 12 events in the Summer Olympic Games. At his peak, Nurmi was undefeated for 121 races at distances from 800 m upwards. Throughout his 14-year career, he remained unbeaten in cross country events and the 10,000 meters.
We also stopped by Sibelius park to see the Sibelius tribute, see photos. Johan Sibelius is widely regarded as Finland’s greatest composer, and his music is often credited with having helped Finland develop a national identity during its struggle for independence from Russia. His most classic piece is Finlandia. See the YouTube link and listen to it while viewing great scenes of Finland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5zg_af9b8c
Finland is covered in Alpine Forests which means they have lots of wood products to export, but not much land for farming so they must import most of their foods. They have beautiful forests and an open policy that anyone can hike or camp in the forest so long as they do it safely.
Finland is mostly granite below the surface, so you see granite everywhere. When driving through the country, lots of granite and its beautiful. Even in Helsinki they use the granite everywhere for retaining walls, sidewalks and curbs. I found an interesting section of a sidewalk showing all three of the common colors of granite, black, white and red.
The language is very difficult, and they use numerous double letters. Double consonants and double vowels. And there are no silent letters, so you hold the sound longer on a double. See several photos of street names or ads I found. Even the name Jesus has two EE’s in Finland. Many of the street signs are in both Finnish on top and Swedish below.
I wanted to Kayak somewhere in Finland and found a harbor rental. My coworker and I had one afternoon open and it had rain in the forecast. We caught an open window for 20 minutes before the rains showed up making it a very cold day.
We stopped at a harbor café and got warm food. I got the Finnish coffee and a Reindeer pot pie. It was good. I also had the Reindeer and mashed potatoes earlier in the week and at the airport leaving I had the Reindeer pizza. It was all terrific. No gamey taste at all. Just like beef.
Finally, I had to find some 67’s in Finland. I named my BLOG page, 67thstreet.us so I collect pictures of “67th Streets” anywhere I travel. Well no 67th Streets in Finland to be found so I improvised and found a few license plates, an exit sign, the Olympic “practice” stadium and I discovered that the Sebelius monument was built in “67 as well. It was a marvelous trip and I’d go back in a heartbeat. Until next time, Hyvästi.
