Finland: A History

Welcome to our next adventure into Finland. Today I will be offering a bit of a history lesson. Finland is a country with a long, rich history so I will only be covering brief moments and some of the more interesting stories.

Aimo Koivunen

Meet Aimo Koivunen, a Finnish soldier who fought in World War 2. This man is probably one of the craziest stories to come out of that war. It was March 18th, 1944. Aimo Koivunen was with his unit skiing, setting up mines to slow down the Russians. Quickly they found themselves surrounded and began to retreat. Skiing for his life, Aimo led the escape. But trying to ski through deep powder, while being shot at proved to be very physically draining. That is when he remembered the package of pills issued to him by the Finnish government. He was also carrying the rations for his entire troop, and thanks to the gloves he was wearing it proved difficult to take just one pill, so naturally, he took 30 pills of pervitine (The brand name of the Meth).

The effects were immediate, and his energy picked back up allowing him and his troops to outrun the Soviets. But quickly his eyes became blurry and he blacked out, but he didn’t stop skiing. While blacked out, he managed to ski until the next morning going over 100 kilometers. At some point along he also lost his unit and was now completely alone. This was extra bad because he had no food or ammunition, just his skis, and his meth. So he kept going.

The Soviets didn’t give up either. In his ski to survive he traveled 250 miles. During which he ran into Soviet troops several times, and skied over a land mine. By chance this land mine also started a fire which Aimo was able to out ski and survive. Despite barely surviving the explosion, and the fire Aimo took more meth and kept going.

After days of skiing he became incredibly hungry, so naturally he caught a bird and ate it raw. Because that’s what you do on meth. And after days of no food, explosions, tons of meth, and being shot at, he was able to make it back to Finnish territory and back to safety.

Vikings

Vikings are most commonly associated with the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. But Finland can’t be left out. Which is fair, the Vikings didn’t ever actually exist in Finland. But they do have a history with the Finnish people. Finland simply chose not to participate in the Vikings raids. Instead, they often provided fur and other goods to trade.

At the time though, Finland was experiencing much unrest and its neighboring countries sought to take advantage of this. So Viking raids and invasions were common. Many people were eager to control the trade routes that ran through Finland.

Finnish fight for Independence.

Before 1917 Finland was part of the Russian empire. And in 1917 they decided they had enough and declared their independence. This didn’t go smoothly, however. The Finnish Bolsheviks greatly resisted the idea of leaving Russia and a civil war began. But it didn’t take long for them to be defeated, and in 1920 a treaty was signed that marked the end of the civil war.

This isn’t the first time they’ve fought for independence. Finland has a long history of being conquered. They also fought for independence in 1741 against Sweden. Then they became ruled by Russia. It was in the 1800’s that the Russians really began to push for the ‘Russianification,’ of Finland. But Finland wanted independence so they fought back in 1917 as mentioned above. Thanks to World War 1, and the Russian Revolution Finland gained their independence fairly easily. But in all 36,000 people lost their lives in the war. Many socialist Fins were put into prison camps, but most of them ended up being pardoned so Finland could begin to heal.

In conclusion.

Thank you for joining me in Finland. I hope you enjoyed this brief history lesson. If you like my newsletter please subscribe, and follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078273135441