Interesting. I spent six years working in Finland. My job took me to some of the dullest places on earth. Only thing that kept me there that long was my wife who continued to live in Tallinn, so there was a lot of travel across the sea. Don’t often meet many people who know that part of the world.
I usually don’t get much time to relax on my visits to Finland, but the Church in Lohja is amazing (Finnish churches are usually very Lutheran and very boring) with 500 year old murals and the churchyard is full of wartime and Finnish Civil War graves and memorials.
One of my pictures - The inscription (courtesy of Jackie’s self taught Finnish) reads something like -
“From a Peaceful Society Scandalised by Lohja’s Red’s Losses through Battle and Through Execution in Prison Camps”
Giuliano tell Jackie her self taught Finnish is near enough spot on
But here is V’s and probably most of the younger generations take on the monument,
I just think it should have included everyone who died due to the civil war, red and white alike. Don’t agree with the politics behind the memorial at all, but don’t get my mom started on that!!!
The coolest time to visit any cemetery in Finland is Christmas.
Every grave has at least one candle on it and at night time the whole place is lit up, makes it somehow very magical. I have some picture somewhere I’ll try to dig them out.
Funerals are quite weird compared to ours, the service and the church bit is the same but I was quite surprised when the official photographer turned up and took pictures of people laying flowers on the grave etc.
One thing they don’t really do is the wake, it’s just coffee (by the bucket full) and buns in the church hall or home.
As a side note Virve would like to defend the dancing in her country, that crap hasn’t happened since the 70’s, they have a whole new load of crap dances now :D:D:D
You just wait until you see a Finnish wedding party do the Macarena :ermm:
I found it interesting as it is the only memorial to the Reds I have seen on my visits to Finland, and the only mention I have seen in Finland of the treatment of the Reds after the war. For anyone with no idea what we are talking about the Wikipedia article is quite good, and fairly well balanced considering how controversial the topic is.
BTW, just to prove Finland is not completely boring - Helsinki is one of the few places where you can explore the city from inside a pub -