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Plaque near Senate Square in Helsinki for the legendary German architect Carl J. Ludvig Engel, who, in the 1800's, designed government buildings in Helsinki and other cities, and many churches in Finland. |
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People prepare to board the old train which travels the 6 km between Jokioinen and Minkio. The train rides are on Sunday in the summer months. |
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Feeding the geese and other birds at the Sappokka Water Park at Kotka. |
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The Saturday flea market at the central square in Pori. |
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More people at the flea market at Pori. The Finnish population, according to the book Facts About Finland, includes about 5500 gypsies. |
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Keeping the ducks feed in the winter, at a park at Rauma. |
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Making bobbin lace is a popular winter pasttime. This is a class in Salo where people learn the very old art of making bobbin lace. Making bobbin lace is an art that goes back about 500 years. Exactly who brought the art to Finland could have been either Catholic monks at Rauma, or sailors who sailed from that area of the country. |
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Making ceramics and pottery is a popular winter pasttime, to pass the long winter nights.. |
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May Day celebration, the Vappu festival of students and workers, in Tampere. This is also the weekend for school reunion's. People wear their high school graduation caps to these events. Here the students of the technical university are being dunked into the river as a graduation tradition. On this day the temperature was about 50 deg. F (10 deg C), but the river water was from a very large lake that was still ice covered. |
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Enjoying the Vappu celebration in Tampere. |
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People crowd the wide sidewalks in central Tampere, during the Vappu celebration. |
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A seal hunter, found in the Aland Museum |
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Click on the picture to see more pictures of people from the Aland Islands from the late 1800's and early 1900's. |
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Worn out after a hard day. |