132. Regional Travel #3.3 - Finnish Museum of Natural History
The Finnish Museum of Natural History (Luonnontieteellinen Keskumuseo) is affiliated with the University of Helsinki, but it is housed in its own historic building in the Kamppi neighborhood of downtown Helsinki. The building was constructed in 1913 and originally used as a Russian-speaking school for boys (this was a few years prior to Finland declaring independence from Russia in 1917). The University of Helsinki purchased the building and moved their natural history collections inside in 1923.
Natural history museums were my favorite kind of museums when I was younger, and the type of institution at which I worked in my previous career in museum collections management (roughly, from 1999-2005). As an adult museum-goer, art museums are a much more frequent destination for me, but I do still love spending time with mammal and dinosaur skeletons; old-fashioned dioramas that show the different habitats and ecosystems around the world; and exhibits that teach the principles of biology, evolution, and ecology in a world that seems to value ignorance now more than ever (although, perhaps that worrying trend is present just in the United States?).
The museum houses five exhibitions across three floors: Story of the Bones, Finnish Nature, the History of Life, Change in the Air, and Wildlife in the World. The museum has an impressive focus on problems related to environmental change, on a regional as well as global scale. And of course, there are several articulated dinosaur skeletons that I think would terrify young children! Some exhibits provided information only in Finnish, while other areas included text in Swedish and English as well. Although Helsinki is quite close to St. Petersburg, no information was available in Russian (they do have a Russian-language setting on their website, however). This seems to be a common practice throughout Helsinki.
Like most university-affiliated museums, this is also a research institution, with over 9 million objects in their collections. But it's also one of Helsinki's most popular museums in terms of the number of annual visitors. It certainly seemed like a popular family destination when I was there on a rainy Saturday afternoon!
Natural history museums were my favorite kind of museums when I was younger, and the type of institution at which I worked in my previous career in museum collections management (roughly, from 1999-2005). As an adult museum-goer, art museums are a much more frequent destination for me, but I do still love spending time with mammal and dinosaur skeletons; old-fashioned dioramas that show the different habitats and ecosystems around the world; and exhibits that teach the principles of biology, evolution, and ecology in a world that seems to value ignorance now more than ever (although, perhaps that worrying trend is present just in the United States?).
The museum houses five exhibitions across three floors: Story of the Bones, Finnish Nature, the History of Life, Change in the Air, and Wildlife in the World. The museum has an impressive focus on problems related to environmental change, on a regional as well as global scale. And of course, there are several articulated dinosaur skeletons that I think would terrify young children! Some exhibits provided information only in Finnish, while other areas included text in Swedish and English as well. Although Helsinki is quite close to St. Petersburg, no information was available in Russian (they do have a Russian-language setting on their website, however). This seems to be a common practice throughout Helsinki.
Like most university-affiliated museums, this is also a research institution, with over 9 million objects in their collections. But it's also one of Helsinki's most popular museums in terms of the number of annual visitors. It certainly seemed like a popular family destination when I was there on a rainy Saturday afternoon!
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