Adulthood

Bridal crown from Vehkalahti

Dressing a peasant bride in brilliant borrowed jewellery is an old custom adopted from the gentry, which can be dated back to at least the 17th century in Finland, and even to the Middle Ages for individual pieces of jewellery.

Even brides in a modest position were dressed in borrowed jewellery in the same way as young ladies of the gentry. It was the job of a special bride dresser to make the bride look as impressive as possible on her wedding day. In the 18th century, dressing up peasant brides was often the duty of wives of the clergy. Gradually, the task was given over to near-professional bride dressers. The bride was decorated with engagement jewellery and, on her head, she wore the most important symbol of all – the bridal crown.

The second half of the 18th century saw the rise of bridal crowns made of silk fabric or of paper like a wreath, decorated with various trinkets, paper ornaments and fabric flowers. In Kymenlaakso, the easternmost region where bridal crowns were traditionally used, trinket crowns developed into a half-moon shape in the second half of the 19th century and were decorated with staniol paper. In the western part of the country, the bridal crown tradition continued until the late 19th century.

This crown comes from Vehkalahti, Kymenlaakso.

KA6328. Photo Ilari Järvinen, 2020.

Dowry chest from the Åland archipelago

In Kumlingen, in the Åland archipelago, a bride travelled from house to house with her escort before her wedding. She received wool as a dowry and collected it in a sack. The escort got a drink in every house as a reward. The wool collected as a dowry was stored in a dowry chest until the autumn. In the autumn, before the wedding, there was a wool carding party for the bride. This way, the bride received carded wool for her dowry. This custom was abandoned in the late 19th century.

KB3091. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2021.

Mordvin bridal headscarf

For a long time, headgear was used to show the status of women in the entire Finno-Ugric language area. In the early decades of Soviet rule in the 1920s and 1930s, Erzya-Mordvin brides wore spectacular, richly decorated headgear for the wedding.

SU2396:446. Photo: Matti Huuhka, 2010.

Engagement doll from Ovamboland

Engagement dolls were originally used to propose marriage. The groom made a doll and gave it to the girl he wanted to marry. If she did not return the doll, her answer to the proposal was positive. The doll was also believed to increase fertility. After the marriage ceremonies, the wife carried the doll in a bag on her back until she gave birth to her first child. The doll could also be named after a living person. If someone harmed the doll, it was considered a crime of the same magnitude as harming the doll’s namesake.

VKSLS1094. Kumbukumbu Museum of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2020.

Bridal bed ornament from Taiwan

A bridal bed ornament, silk, embroidered. Hung over the bed, the ornament was believed to bring good reproductive luck to the newlywed couple with its auspicious symbols.

VK6456:41. Photo: Markku Haverinen, 2012.

Wedding dress from the 1960s

A wedding dress from 1963. An off-white dress of translucent nylon with red and green printed floral patterns. The decoration was complemented with fluffy beige details and bow ribbons. The hem was gathered into the waistband in one piece. The scalloped edge of the fabric was placed on the hem without a hemstitch. The scalloped edge was also used on the neckline and on the mouths of short set-in sleeves. The wedding dress represents the youthful fashion of the radical 1960s.

IT77:2. Photo: Simo Karisalo, 2019.

Comb pendant from the St Nikolai shipwreck

The comb pendant found in the depths of the ship is not an ordinary hair care accessory; its significance is symbolic rather than practical. Its shape corresponds to comb pendants used among Finno-Ugric peoples from the Iron Age up to the 20th century. Among other things, the type of object in question is associated with Mordvin wedding traditions, an essential part of which is the comb pendant used in pairs: the bride would wear the copper comb on her chest and the groom on his belt. Typically, the upper part of a Mordvin wedding comb is shaped like two horse heads turning away from each other. A comb ornament like this was also found in the St Nikolai wreck and belongs to the collection of items of the Museum of Kymenlaakso.

The comb ornament is a concrete indication of the varied backgrounds of the men drafted into the Russian navy. The crews were mostly made up of serfs, and the recruitments are known to have extended to large parts of the empire. The crews of warships therefore included landlubbers who had never even seen the sea, let alone been on board a ship. For these children of the heartland, life on the waves, not to mention naval battles, must have felt like a nightmare. Perhaps, in his last moments, one of them clenched a wedding comb, a memory of the far-away home region and the young wife who would have to wait in vain for her husband’s return. We only know for certain that this pendant is a symbol of ties established and the breaking of these ties on a windy day in July 229 years ago.

Second Battle of Svensksund

Sweden and Russia were repeatedly on the warpath throughout the 18th century. The third Russo-Swedish conflict of the century, known as Gustav III’s War in Finland, was fought between cousins Gustav III and Catherine II the Great in 1788–1790. The starting point was Gustav III’s desire to win back the honour and great power status his country had lost as a result of the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the Russo-Swedish War of 1741–1743. The urge to see himself as part of the continuum of great warrior kings also accelerated the war fever of the young ruler.

Gustav’s plans, however, proved over-optimistic. During the third year of the war, the focus of military operations shifted from land to sea. The Swedish navy was led by the king himself, despite his inexperience. Two large naval battles were fought at Svensksund outside the present-day city of Kotka, the first one on 24 August 1789 and the second one on 9–10 July 1790. The first confrontation, which ended in a Russian victory, was observed by the King of Sweden at a safe distance on the rocks on the island of Kotkansaari. In the second battle, Gustav had his empire, crown and life at stake. Having narrowly escaped Vyborg Bay after an unsuccessful invasion, the king had played all his cards and, with the enemy at his heels, chose Svensksund as the scene for the decisive battle.

According to some sources, as many as 450 ships, ranging from small and agile gun dinghies to heavy coastal frigates, xebecs and galleys, assembled at Svensksund. The wind carried the monstrous thunder of the guns all the way to St Petersburg. Lasting for nearly 24 hours, the struggle of archipelago fleets on waves shrouded in gunpowder smoke meant suffering and death for thousands of men, and the shapes of dozens of ships riddled with cannonballs remained as ghostly invisible monuments on the bottom of the sea. Partly assisted by the forces of nature, the cornered Swedes gained the upper hand and eventually victory in the largest naval battle ever in the Baltic Sea. Success at Svensksund gave Gustav III a good position in the ensuing peace negotiations, and the border drawn along the Kymi River remained in place in the Värälä Treaty.

St Nikolai

The frigate St Nikolai of the Russian archipelago fleet is the best-known and most studied shipwreck in the Svensksund battle area. Completed at the Kronstadt shipyard on 23 April 1790, the 38-gun rowing frigate represented the new types of vessels in the naval warfare of the day and the best firepower in the archipelago fleet. The ship was approximately 40 metres in length, 9.75 metres in width and only 3.35 metres in draught because of the shallow coastal and archipelago waters. The sailing history of the brand new warship, however, was very short. At Svensksund, the ship was located near the centre of the Russian line and was the target of heavy gunfire for hours, until only 80 of the 400 men who served on board were alive and it was no longer possible to save the heavily leaking ship by pumping. At around 6:30 pm, the St Nikolai keeled over and sank instantly. Only a handful of men survived.

The warship that fought to the bitter end under British officer Samuel E. Marshall thus became the grave for the captain and his crew but also a priceless time capsule for archaeologists and historians. Since the shipwreck was rediscovered in 1948, thousands of objects have been raised from the wreck and stored in museums. They cover the whole spectrum of life on the ship from a lorgnette to work gloves, from navigation instruments to muskets and from the officers’ china to the crew’s wooden spoons.

H62100:98. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2018.

Wedding memories from 1911

Ebba Maria Pontán’s (b. 1888) bridal veil, myrtle ornament and orange flower ornaments have been preserved in a wooden cigar box. Ebba married Gustav Rikard Munsterhjelm on 7 October 1911. A white tulle veil has been folded into one half of the box, and the other half houses a tulle ring tied with myrtle branches. There is also a tiara with orange flowers and green leaves and an orange flower ornament with lace attached to cardboard. White orange flowers and myrtle branches made from wax are traditional decorations for both the bride and groom’s wedding outfits.

H2017016:14a-e. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2018.

Dowry chest from the Mari El Republic

Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, the wedding was, and still is in some places, a series of events consisting of multiple stages and lasting several days, towards the end of which the bride moves from her childhood home to her husband’s house. The property of the young wife moves from house to house in a dowry chest. This chest with painted decorations was purchased in the village of Tshavainur in the Mari El Republic in 2002.

SU6091:1. Photo: Markku Haverinen, 2013.

School of Business course ring

Studying and graduating from school are important changes in life. The picture shows a course ring from the School of Business in 1940.

IT9:18. Photo: Ilari Järvinen, 2018..

Wedding shoes from the 1980s

Wedding shoes from a wedding that took place in the Helsinki Parish Church in the autumn of 1988. The wedding ceremony was held in a nearby manor. The bride wore a wedding dress designed by Laura Ashley.

IT103:1-2. Photo: Simo Karisalo, 2019.

Confirmation dress from Helsinki

Atelier Solveig Savola made this confirmation dress from nylon, which was a new material at the time. It was worn in Töölö Church in Helsinki on 20 November 1954. The rigid translucent fabric is imprinted with white feather-like patterns. The sleeveless bell dress features a hem pleated into the waistband, a metal zip side fastening and hook fastening. The bolero’s long sleeves continue straight from the front and back pieces. The neckline rises slightly at the back of the neck, and the round-cornered front hems are tied in front as a bow tie.

H2015001a-b. Photo: Markku Haverinen, 2015.

Wedding dress from 1882

The wedding of Miss Constance v. Ammondt and General Konstantin v. Scharnhorst was held in the official residence of the Governor of Hämeenlinna in the summer of 1882. Constance’s wedding dress was light turquoise bengaline and satin.

H41072. Photo: Jan Lindroth, 2003.