I thought long and hard about why I disliked this museum so much. The reason: it is aimed at the worst possible demographic, the educated normie. Nothing wrong with normies, the Danish museum of Moesgaard, which has a very similar concept for example, is also aimed at them. The good thing moesgaard does though, is that it still tells a full story that not only builds on known concepts in Danish history, but also explains the fundamentals. Here is where this museum goes completely square.

I walk into an exhibition about prehistoric Finland, and there are some interesting exhibition pieces. Instead of explaining what we know about the Finnish prehistory however, the exhibition decides to wax lyrically about why Bishop Henry never existed and he was never martyred because there are no contemporary written sources about it, and in the same breath writes in detail about the practically undocumented Finnish religion, where suddenly, relics, tradition and etymology are enough to establish its veracity. Finally, I was excited to find interesting views on the winter war, and my wife to get to know the basics for it, and that monumental figure of Finnish history, Mannerheim. At this point unsurprisingly, the winter war is only mentioned, outside of chronological order, on one single wall with some uninteresting pictures.

Here again comes into the picture the educated normie. He knows what the winter war is. But what does he not know, this rootless cosmopolitan? What the Sami and women did. The museum goes on and on about this, not at all addressing the cause and walk of the conflict, leaving us completely bewildered, this being Finlands greatest hour. Mannerheim is only mentioned twice, both as a side note in a larger picture when he was twice responsible for, in every sense of the word, the survival of Finland. This to me almost seems like the administrators of this museum seem to think of this era as shameful.

The only parts I found laudable were the detail on recent history, and the collection of prehistoric objects. Apart from that it is a museum focused on platitudes, pandering to its international demographic and some sort of faux intellectualism, which one can smell from a million miles away. It goes on and on about the meaning of history, but fails to tell it. all in all, while we did not regret our visit my review is mainly to signify that it could be many many times better, and that it's shameful it is not for there is rarely a nation that has achieved more during its short existence, and its worth learning about.