Monday 30 March 2015

Hiljainen Kansa: The Silent People of Suomussalmi, Finland

image credit: Pekka Isomursu

If you are driving along Highway 5, north of the small town of Suomussalmi, in north-eastern Finland, you are greeted by a peculiar sight. A crowd of almost a thousand figures stand silently on a field near the road.

This army of scarecrow-like figures called 'the Silent People' or 'Hiljainen kansa' in Finnish, were the creation of local artist Reijo Kela. They were first displayed in 1988 in a field in Lassila, a neighbourhood of Helsinki and later moved to this location in 1994 itself.

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