All Presidents Of Finland

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Helsinki has memorials for several Presidents of Finland (possibly for all of them, and I just don’t know), but unless you know that they are president’s memorials, you would never recognize them. On Sunday, Boris suggested we visit all the presidents he knew, and since it still felt not as cold as in Vienna, I agreed (and barely made it, because it was actually pretty cold!)

Relander, second president of Finland, called “Upwards, Outwards.” Symbolises stability and growth
Risto Ryti, the fifh president of Fonland, served in 1940-1944. His personal history is really tragic, and the memorial symbolises it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risto_Ryti
The is not a president’s memorial, but the only building which survived after the old sugar factory was demplished to give place to the new Ppera building.
A memorial to Finnish sugar industry 🙂
A memorial tp Urho Kekkonen, the eight and the longest-serving Finnish President (from 1956 to 1982)
A closer view
100 years of Finnish democracy monument, The sculpture was initiated by a women’s organization to honor the first 19 women elected to the Finnish Parliament in 1907; first ever elected women in the world
Mauno Koivisto, nineth Finnish President, memorial, dubbed as “Mediator,” reflects the role of Koivisto “between East and West”
Juho Kusti Paasikivi, the seventh President of Finland, served from 1946 to 1956, right before Kekkonen. The memorial is dubbed “East and West”, because he had to balance between the demands of the neighboring Soviet Union, but he still tried (successfully) pull Finland towards integration with the West. The inscription reads: The start of all wisdom is acknowledging the facts.

In short, all post-WWII Finnish Presidents had to balance between being the USSR neighbor and trying to do the best for the people of Finland

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Published by Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

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