Photos from the Finnish Capital
Women are walking past the grave of Augustin Ehrensvärd to meet the arriving soldiers.
This is one of my favourite photos from the summer. This was a special event, normally there isn’t any military camp at the seafortress.
More photos from the event can be seen in my photography blog.
Women’s European Championships in football are going on in Finland and today I was supposed to tell you how much I and others have enjoyed watching the games but…
…instead I’m frustrated about photography rules that are totally different
I moved the rest of the text to my photography blog as it is more about photography than Helsinki and the text was a bit too long for a photo blog.
C-3PO from Star Wars has been looking out from a window for some time in Kaisaniemi. He is probably devastated as I was not able to see R2-D2 anywhere.
The purple color in the photo is something I got “pyytämättä ja yllätyksenä.” Without requesting and as a complete surprise.
That phrase has been heard often in Finland after prime minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki used it in 2003 to explain why she had earlier received a certain fax from a person who worked at the office of the president. Only after a few months in office, Finland’s first female prime minister had to resign. The war in Iraq had a political casualty in a country that was not involved in the war.
C-3PO got the purple color when I tried to get rid of the many reflections that there were in the window by using a polarizing filter.
A wider view of yesterday’s meeting place post. You can see the clock below the Stockmann sign.
Stockmann is The Department Store in Helsinki. It is difficult to compete with its traditions and location.
Stockan kellon alla (under the clock of Stockmann department store) is a classic meeting place in Helsinki.
Women’s football got more attention in Finland when the national team qualified for the 2005 European championships and surprisingly reached the semi-finals. And more is to come as Women’s European championships started in Finland on Sunday. In addition to Helsinki, games will be played also in Turku, Tampere and Lahti.
You don’t see often a Finnish team play in any European or world championships so it was a bit disappointing to see half of the seats empty at the Olympic stadium in Finland’s opening match against Denmark. Just like in 2005, the Danes were beaten. In a decade or two there are going to be many Helsinkians who are sorry that they didn’t go to see these games. It is quite certain that women’s football is then going to be a lot bigger sport than it is today.
The days are long gone when small Finland was an athletics superpower but there is still one sport where Finns haven’t given up – the javelin. Finnish men have won seven olympic gold medals and women one. In athletics world championships (started in Helsinki 1983) we have 4 + 1 golds.
Today Tero Pitkämäki is defending his Osaka gold medal at Berlin athletics world championships. In a typical Berlin final there are no Finns and one would be rare but in the javelin final there are four.
Many Finns are also very knowledgeable about the best javelin throwers of other nations. When they are competing in Finland, they probably get more attention and support than anywhere else in the world. Today Finns are watching closely what Norwegian Andreas Thorkildsen is doing and earlier it was the incredible Czech Jan Zelezny who got the most attention.
The statue is Tellervo, daughter of Tapio (Tellervo, Tapion tytär) by Yrjö Liipola. It’s often also called Diana because Tellervo in Finnish mythology is the equivalent of the Roman goddess of forests.
A voting booth was modified as a kissing booth at the stairs of of the parliament house. Later in the evening there probably were a lot more people.
On Friday Helsinki was full of people celebrating the annual Night of the Arts. There are many kinds of performances on the streets and many museums, theatres and stores are open till very late and usually there is no entrance fee either.
Unfortunately the event has become more like an excuse to get drunk and there are so many people that it can be difficult to see anything. This year I was going to check whether that is still true but unfortunately I felt so tired that I left the city center before the happening really even started.
This is no longer my main blog, see Learning to See in Helsinki for more frequent updates.
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YLE News Finland | Scoop.it
