Dear Friends,
It was a beautiful day in Helsinki - high 60s - some rain later in afternoon. Well, that is summer there!!! This was our first time ever to Finland.
Comprised of 60,000 lakes and bordered by water and land, Finland's history has been largely affected by its neighbors; Norway to the north, Sweden too the northwest, and Russia to the east. Only independent since 1917, Finland has been ruled for hundreds of years by imperial powers; first by the Swedes and then the Russian Czars. As early as the 12th century, the King of Sweden had annexed two large sections of Finland and by 1634 it was fully incorporated into the Swedish empire. The decline of Sweden as a world power brought Russia into the picture. At the conclusion of the Great Northern War in the 18th century, Russia ceded part of the Finnish territory. Following another invasion by Russia in the late 1930's, the Finns were forced to sue for peach. Helsinki, located along the southern coast of Finland, makes up the most populated, industrialized and richest part of the country. A city of a half million people, Helsinki has a character quite different from the other Scandinavian capitals.
Founded by King Gustav Wasa in 1550, the regal city was targeted to be a viable competitor against Tallinn as a favored Baltic port. Dutch merchants had built up the Estonian city to capture lucrative St. Petersburg trade, and generations of Finnish merchants looked on with envy as their neighbor across the sea grew more prosperous. When a tragic fire swept the Finnish port in 1808, the citizens seized the chance to modernize.
In 1812, Czar Alexander II moved the capital to Helsinki after a fire struck Turku. Without its crowded pre-blaze wooden buildings, Helsinki was completely rebuilt. The czar engaged German designer Carl Ludwig Engel to planhis new Helsinki as a spacious and elegant city. Noted for his parks and squares, many of which display magnificent sculptures, Engel had a keen eye for the elegant lines of Eastern and Slavic architecture that Alexander favored. Note the distinctive Russian influence in local design - Helsinki has often represented a "typical Russian town" in modern movies.
The city center is breathtaking. From Senate Square, Helsinki Cathedral's landmark green domes can be seen for miles (I have photos of this cathedral). It is a huge Lutheran cathedral. In the middle of the square a statue of Alexander is a symbol of an otherwise unhappy historical period. Movie fans will find the expansive square and its monuments familiar. They were featured in the films: Reds, Gorky Park, and White Knights.
In the morning, Dick did a Helsinki by Bike tour. I should have done it but was worried that it would be too hard. It was not at all he said - mostly all flat and they stopped along the way quite a bit since it was a sightseeing tour. I sent him with our little camera so he got some really great photos you will see. The bikes were called Jopo - a Finnish-designed bike. Created in the 1960s and designed as a simple, practical transportation that could be adjusted to fit a wide range of people, this bike has become an important part of Finnish culture. Known as "everyone's bicycle", Jopos once were found in almost every Finnish family home and are now making a popular comeback. They toured all thru the city, parks, waterfront, residential and commercial areas. They then went to Sibelius Park, a magnificent monument fashioned from steel pipes. The work honors Jean Sibelius, Finland's most famous composer. Sibelius was a tragic figure and lived much of his life fighting debt and addiction, but he also rallied Finnish nationalism and is remembered as a hero. He had a great time on his bike trip. At the end, I took photos of their return.
In the afternoon we took a ship's tour called: Helsinki Highlights & Country Home Visit. We drove around the city a little seeing the highlights. In winter, the harbor is frozen and is much of the Baltic, so Helsinki has huge ice breakers. There is a photo of those ships tied up in the harbor. We then headed out to the farming community of Sipoo. There we stopped at St. Sigfrid's, the oldest church in the community, dating back to the 15th century. We then continued our drive through the forest to a Finnish countryside home beside a beautiful lake. We spent about an hour and 15 mins. there. The lady of the house spoke beautiful English. The home and grounds had been in her family. All Finnish homes have at least one sauna but they had one outside in a little separate building next to a little pond. It was called a "smoker" sauna. They use them every day year round. In the winter, her husband cuts a hole in the ice at the bottom of the steps and she comes out of the sauna and takes a dip in the lake and then goes back into the sauna. She was showing us. They served us tea, coffee, and some typical Finnish sweets-berry pie with homemade ice cream. The home was beautiful. They raised 4 children there and now their one son has a new home just on the next lot and they have one grandson. We also had a lovely walk thru the woods and around the big lake there. After returning to Helsinki, we stopped at the Rock Church (Temppeliaukio Church), which was magnificent. It is a Lutheran church (85% of the people in Finland are Lutheran). There was a natural, huge rock pile, that they dynamited out the center of. The roof was made of copper wires in circles which is a fantastic acoustic conductor. It was very quiet and peaceful to go in and sit down. They were playing some beautiful music which allowed for us to experience the wonderful acoustics!!! After the church, we stopped at Senate Square where we viewed the beautiful big cathedral and the statue of Alexander. Unfortunately we did experience rain in the afternoon, so some of the photos that I took thru the bus windows do have raindrops on them. Sorry.
Enjoy!
Jan and Dick
