I spent two days on the southwest coast of Finland in late August 2025. My trip took me to Kimitoon, technically an island, in the region called Varsinais-Suomi, whose biggest city is the historic former capital Turku. It’s mostly rural with lots cottages and farms on the island. I then crossed over to the region Uusimaa, which includes the coastal cities of Tammisaari (also a “cottage hub” area) and Hanko. I visited both of those cities, and ended the day spending a lovely evening in Tammisaari. On my route, I stopped by the bridge connecting Kimitoon to the “mainland” by the small community of Strömma. It was raining. The fishermen were out. It was lovely.
Even shopping malls look mighty under clouds that hang over South Ostrobothnia, Finland. (Shot taken in Seinäjoki, Finland, August 2025)
I will be posting a large update later to my Finnish photo gallery on Flickr and some batches here. It’s been a very busy time with historic events unfold in the United States that are having me prioritize issues relating the safeguarding of U.S. democracy, in its now battered form, and the U.S. Constitution.
I also maintain a larger collections of stories, videos, podcasts, and photos on my website section dedicated to my connection to this great country, a land of some of my biological ancestors.
Finland’s Independence Day, itsenäisyyspäivä, is celebrated each year on December 6. It commemorates the day the Finnish Parliament declared independence from Russia in 1917, as Europe was being torn apart by World War I and as Russia was convulsing in its own violent revolution. Finland would soon have its own bloody civil war soon after, in 1918, with the German-backed “whites” defeating the USSR-supported Finnish communist forces, the “reds,” with a decisive and destructive battle in Tampere led by Finnish war hero Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.
For the Finnish people, it marked the first time ever that the country was finally free of foreign domination after more than 700 years of colonization, Christianization, and conquest and rule by Sweden, from the mid-12th century to 1809. It then endured 108 years of Russian domination and rule. It finally became a nation amid the chaos of World War I.
After the Tsar’s rule was toppled, the Parliament of Finland made its Declaration of Finnish Independence on December 6, 1917. The new Nordic nation sent requests to be recognized as a sovereign country to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. The Bosheviks in what became the USSR formally acknowledged Finnish independence on December 31, 1917.
Many Finnish citizens in most communities commemorate their independence with formal and solemn events, often involving war memorials than can be found in every city and every community, no matter how small, throughout the Nordic country, like this event planned for December 6, 2024 in Kuopio, at a memorial, or at churches, like this event the same day in Helsinki.
My Finnish relatives, who I only met for the first time in September 2023, told me the day for most Finns has special significance as a remembrance of the war dead, who died in Finland’s three conflicts during World War II: The Winter War, against the USSR (1939-40); the Continuation War (1941-44), against the USSR; the Lapland War against Nazi Germany (former ally, 1944-45). Some of the pictures I’m seeing posted as day awakens in Finland on December 6, 2024, are of people reading the great Finnish war novel, Väinö Linna’s The Unknown Soldier/Tuntematon Sotilas.
It was a brutal time, when Finland, a much smaller nation, faced an adversary with vastly superior resources and weaponry and withstood an unprovoked attack at great cost. Finland ultimately lost more than 10 percent of its land, but was never brutally occupied by the USSR like Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, or like other Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway, by Nazi Germany. However, the Nazis fought a scorched earth campaign in late 1944 and early 1945 against Finland when Finland turned on them to reclaim their nation and make peace with the USSR. The Germans left a trail of ruin as they were driven from Lapland, where they once were stationed as allies. The harsh peace signed with the USSR ultimately saw Finland retain its territorial integrity and maintain its independence against heavy odds.
During my three trips to Finland since August 2023, I have been documenting the way the country and its people remember the trauma of these wars, taking photographs of its war memorials and markers for the dead. Nothing has shaped modern Finnish identity more than these conflicts that took 95,000 lives of its soldiers between 1939 and 1945. Finland’s remembrance of these traumatic experiences are found in nearly every Finnish community, no matter the size or location.
Every city and village I visited had memorials. All of them. So I would stop my rental car, get out, and document what I found. Flowers were always fresh. Always. Every memorial I saw everywhere had fresh flowers. Everyone I went to had visitors. The past was always remembered. If you look for Finnish news of itsenäisyyspäivä, inevitably there will a photo at a memorial.
I’m getting to be an old fart. As such, I actually want to do another Baltic Sea crossing between Sweden and Finland on these cruise ships. They are fun. On my trip from Turku to Stockholm on the Viking line, I met a fabulous German couple who even guided me nicely to downloading the right local transport app and picking the right bus and subways to the central station from the ferry terminal in beautiful Stockholm. How about that! Also, you get to behold old farts like me disco dancing in the discos, the mad rush to buy duty-free booze by huge crowds of Nordic travelers stocking up for months, and the wonderful upper deck views of this lovely part of the world.
(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate gallery picture page)
Freshly back from my glorious 11-day trip in Finland in September 2023, I have begun seeing a surprising number of articles on Finnish saunas.
On November 24, 2023, the BBC ran a multimedia spread under the banner “Saunas: The essence of Finland’s heartbeat,” featuring a refreshingly accurate video by Maria Teresa Alvarado, aided by producer by Natalia Guerrero. The video began showing a scene of a typical Finnish sauna, with a Finnish voice saying, “A Finn without a sauna is like a polar bear without ice and snow.”
A traditional outdoor sauna, located next to Lake Saimaa, north of Savonlinna
A month earlier, on October 24, 2023, the famed British news service ran another glowing piece called “The 10,000-year-old origins of the sauna – and why it’s still going strong,” on this ancient Finnish tradition of taking hot air baths in wooden sheds that stimulate excessive sweating, often followed by immersion in cold water, snow, or cold weather.
Finland’s Baltic neighbor Estonia shares an equally old sauna tradition, and its sauna traditions this year are getting buzz thanks to the film “Smoked Sauna Sisterhood” (“Savusanna Sõsarad” in Estonian), a 2023 documentary on that country’s ancient sauna tradition and the women who partake in it. It just won the best documentary film award on December 9, 2023 at the European Film Awards.
Saunas: hot, hot, hot everywhere!
Yes, saunas are clearly the sweaty, hot ticket in many spaces.
Even in the U.S. medical establishment, which has never embraced practices that can’t be tied to for-profit enterprises that prioritize profit over health, some medical researchers are suddenly acknowledging the extensive and documented health benefits of saunas.
The modern Finnish sauna is but one of many “sweat lodges” and saunas that emerged globally, but none more famously than the Finnish sauna.
The BBC’s October 24, 2023 story by Clare Dowdy explored the history of the sauna in Finland and the Baltic region and its cultural significance to Finland, from the past to present: “In Finland, the sauna is ‘one of the key national symbols’, says [Dalva] Lamminmäki, precisely because it’s very much an everyday ritual for Finns, with 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million inhabitants. ‘Everyday practices are relevant to national identity also because over time they form a widely shared understanding of the culture and what it is like to be a citizen of a country,’ she adds, ‘It’s said that sauna creates a basis for understanding what Finnishness is.’”
This week, I stumbled on still another glowing article, published in The Guardian on December 6, 2023 , on the foundational importance of sauna’s to Finland’s enviable status as the “happiest country in the world” six years in a row.
Writer Miranda Bryant visited Tampere, “sauna capital of Finland,” and explored its well-known public saunas—the city boast almost five dozen of them. Bryant praised the tradition and suggested they are a foundation to Finland’s success creating national wellbeing.
“Unlike in other countries, where saunas are usually marketed as an expensive activity for the few, in Finland they have a far more everyday role,” writes Bryant. “Many people have saunas in their homes; lots of older Finnish people were even born in saunas. But they are also considered a sacred space and a place to find community as well as peace.”
The difference between real and fake sauna experiences
It could be that I’m more aware of saunas because I used them and sought out traditional and public sauna experiences during my trip in Finland.
Rudy Owens experiencing the pleasure of a traditional wood-burning sauna next to Lake Saimaa.
I also think saunas are now trending as the latest “it” thing in wellness or boutique healthcare that really is a mask for old-fashioned narcissism.
This week, I saw a mobile sauna being advertised for a price of $45 for an hour at a Portland event. The branding of this new fad in “Instagram poseur” imagery typically leans heavily into maximum cleavage and/or a hot yoga bod, with the sumptuous sauna user looking sumptuously fulfilled.
From what I can tell, that is how many sauna services and products are marketed to U.S. consumers—something for “special” people, meaning those who are sexier, more charismatic, and definitely healthier than you. They definitely have a hotter bod than you too!
Public sauna, Helsinki, and not a hot body in sight
I eventually hit a breaking point on the corruption and meaning of saunas, to human health and to their egalitarian and cultural roots in Finland, but also Estonia, other Baltic countries, and also Russia through hot baths called banya.
I especially appreciated the photos of saunas that Bryant profiled in her Guardian feature story, and also on the City of Tampere’s tourism website promoting the city’s many facilities. That webpage, showing people of all different body types—not one a smoking beauty—notes: “Did you know there are over 55 public saunas in Tampere region for anyone to relax in, throughout the year? Finnish sauna culture is also a part of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.”
I decided to borrow some images I found on websites that showcase differences between U.S. and Finnish sauna imagery for editorial commentary.
These honest pictures matter, because they show a sauna is not the domain of Instagram narcissists. They show guys half naked drinking beer outside or people of all body types wandering outdoors in the cold after plunging into a frozen lake. That’s how they do it. And they are really wonderful.
After hitting my sauna boiling point, practically steaming, I kvetched to some of my Finnish relatives who live in Tampere (I know, isn’t that a cool coincidence!) on how American “entrepreneurs” are trying to turn saunas into snobby, high-end, upper middle-class, white, health salvation spas for the “right kind of people,” promoted by scantily clad sexpots showing beaucoup de cleavage and draped in towels. I shared it was driving me nuts. They all responded with funny emojis, and one of them suggested I needed to join them at Tampere’s Rauhaniemi folk spa, which has a nice, icy-lake, winter swimming option.
I’m glad we are seeing the far more realistic image of what saunas are like.
They are very democratic and plebeian, especially in countries like Estonia and Finland. Naked typical bodies are not oozing with steam like yoga skankiness. There, the sweaty bodies are rather normal looking. And in a sauna, you show the flesh in all its perfectly imperfect glory.
(Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)
Consistent with my “all things that are cool are Finnish” approach to thinking now, I found wonderful nuggets of new insights from books I have been reading about one of my ancestral homelands, Finland.
For those who may never check out books from a library, this summary is for the lay person who doesn’t want to wade through data summaries on health, education, longevity, maternal care, and income inequality, which Finland continues to excel at relative to nearly every developed country.
One area where Finland shines is the country’s national character. That character is defined by an important concept and word called “sisu.” I connect deeply to this idea too, and I could see it during my trip there in September 2023.
This is what Danny Dorling and Annika Koljonen, authors of the wonderful book published in 2020 on Finland’s successes as a nation, called Finntopia, wrote in describing what sisu means. It is, my view, one reason why Finland to stands out among all developed nations. I see their national successes tied to their cultural identity.
According to Dorling and Koljonen: “The clue is the word, ‘sisus,’ which [in Finnish] is literally the interior, or inside of a thing or a being. Then it hit me that sisu is like the somatic embodiment of mental toughness. What we attribute to the mind–our strength and ability to keep going no matter what–is also reflected in our bodies, in our physical being.”
For me, the power of sisu is very personal. It resonates with everything I do in life and the things that have meant the most to me in helping me a better person.
As I’ve long said, I connected to this part of myself, the part I had to find through hard times, which in the end, led to things that I cherish now. Maybe there is something genetic that connects me to my Finnish ancestors in how I ended up.
Yes, I believe that to be true. Ask a Finnish person what makes them Finnish, and you may hear them explain sisu.
What Beautiful Light 