The Finnish Bed (Suomalainen Sanky)

Suomalainen sanky (The Finnish Bed), by ethnologist Leena Sammallahti and researcher Marja-Liisa Lehto (SKS 2006), is an illustrated record of obstructive sleeping structures, from easy benches along the walls, once shared in several farmhouses, to elaborately carved and padded laps of luxury by high-income houses. Sammallahti desired to put the Finnish mattress into the spotlight it deserves and consequently we now have a history of the bed. "Ever since I was a kid I haven't slept well, so the mattress occupies my thoughts in this regard", Sammallahti states.

Her recently-published publication, Suomalainen sänky ("The Finnish Bed") introduces the growth of Finnish beds out of strong sleeping platforms to elaborate canopy beds, also to models that could also function as sofas in addition to of bunk beds. The beds of the Tornio River Valley stand out in their magnificence states Sammallahti. "They've elegance and elegance, which I've always adored".
The seeds of this publication were sown in the late 1960s when Professor Niilo Valonen, a legend at Finnish ethnology, utilized pupils to picture the interiors of plantation houses, making an illustrated album. Sammallahti was among these youthful student assistants in the moment. "When I took images of furniture, then a salesman selling fresh furniture seemed. He believed I was a rival. He could barely believe that anybody will be interested in old furniture. At the point it had been used as firewood," Sammallahti remembered. Together with her novel on Finnish beds, Sammallahti believes that she's finished one factor of a significant job that her mentor wasn't able to finishin hbislifetime. Valonen's intention was to examine the villages, lawns, buildings, and interiors of plantation residing in Finland.
Sammallahti resides in Pori in an old row home originally built for mill employees. In Helsinki she's her"travel package", made in the old sauna construction in the rear of a conventional 1950? S home in Herttoniemi. The furnishings of the houses give a sign of the livelihood of whoever resides there. "Actually, just the pc is brand new", she moans. "Already as a schoolgirl, I moved to auctions, searching for older items." The writer's favorite bed was inherited from her grandma. But typically she moans at a pine mattress in the 1920? S, since it's pleasantly wide.
A mattress is where folks are born, die, and make love. In ancient times, carrying a bride was really written to the laws: a union was considered legal only after it may be revealed that a few had spent a night under the very same sheets. Sammallahti's memories of mattress additionally surge with familiarity. "I remember how my grandma's sister, a midwife, shot me, a kid crying for insufficient sleep, alongside her beneath sheepskin blankets. And my fiancé and I shared with a Heteka metal frame bed at the hot attic of a summer cabin."
Sammallahti has been retired now for a couple years but continues to perform research. "After being relieved of the duties of the occupation, I've dived to the deep seas of a research worker " The aquatic metaphor isn't a coincidence. The writer is the descendant of a marine family with roots in the outer islands in the Gulf of Finland, which Finland dropped in the war into the Soviet Union. "As a kid I had been permitted to sail into a ship exceptionally freely. Throughout the vacations, I had been permitted to proceed with my dad in a steamship into the harbours of Europe."
Sammallahti obtained her doctorate in the University of Helsinki in the early 1980? s. Following that, she worked in lots of tasks, such as that since the mind of the Maritime Museum, and the memorial of the Satakunta region. "I've seen the way the memorial industry grew together with Finnish riches. Now it's sad it is essential to decrease financing", '' she notes. "Museums are the only businesses which save old things. And together, we inform about meanings and values - religious things."
Among the most popular museums in which you'll be able to observe these self-same beds on your own is your Lyytikkala Museum Farm at South Karelia. The old farmhouse has mended chairs built across the walls of the main area (the tupa) while across the rear wall you will find beds very similar to some of the shown previously. In years past, the sons of the proprietor, the farm-workers and seeing guests staged at nighttime (in summertime, they slept at the farm sheds).
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