Day 12. The Museum of Journalism Helsinki

On By Little Miss TravellerIn Finland, Helsinki & Espoo July 2017, Northern Europe

Our plan today was to explore Helsinki’s Boulevard which starts from Erottaja in central Helsinki.  Strolling along this elegant avenue we admired the beautiful buildings, many of which are now high class shops, cafes, restaurants and galleries.  We passed The Old Church and its garden which always seems a popular venue for young people to come, sit on the grass, and spend time with their friends.

The Alexander Theatre, Helsinki
The Alexander Theatre, Helsinki

Next, we paused to admire the Alexander Theatre which was constructed in 1879 for Russians living in Helsinki and was known as the Russian Theatre until 1918 when it became the home of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet.  In 1993 they moved to a new building and since then it has been used for guest stage performances.

Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki
Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki

Crossing the road, slightly further along we came to the Sinebrychoff Art Museum where we visited the permanent exhibition on the upper floor which displays some of the nineteenth century estate of the Sinebrychoff family, showcasing their upper class life.

Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki
Sinebrychoff Art Museum

The building was constructed in 1842 by the Russian businessman Nikolai Sinebrychoff whose brewery operated in part of the premises until 1992.  It was his brother’s family who lived in the house and they began collecting art.  In 1921 the family donated their collection to the State and this museum is now part of the Finnish National Gallery along with Kiasma and the Ateneum.

Rear garden at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki
Sinebrychoff Art Museum Gardens

At the rear of the museum lies an attractive sloped garden which was proving popular with people sunbathing and enjoying picnics, there even seemed to be a wedding photo shoot taking place by the trees.  On the edge of the park there’s also a pleasant brasserie, South Park, with a sunny outside terrace.

Flea Market, Hietalahti Market Square, Helsinki
Flea Market in Hietalahti Market Square

A few steps further on we arrived at Hietalahti market square which hosts a regular flea market throughout the year.  Wandering around, we found vintage clothing, ceramics, household items, books and organic vegetables for sale.  At the head of the square lies the Hietalahti Market Hall (Kauppahalli) where you will find around 20 food stalls offering a gourmet selection of different cuisines from Finnish smoked salmon open sandwiches served on dark rye bread to Japanese sushi and miso soup.  Many of the stalls have their own small seating areas and diners can also sit outdoors if the weather permits, the food looked very tempting.

Hietalahti Market Hall, Helsinki
Hietalahti Market Hall, Helsinki

This square brought us to the end of the Boulevard and so we decided to return to the centre by tram (No. 6) once again enjoying our ride rattling along Helsinki’s cobbled streets.

Museum of Journalism, Helsinki
Museum of Journalism

Back in the centre we then opted to take a look in the Museum of Journalism which explores the history of, and modern day media including the freedom of speech in Finland.  The museum is free to visit and is located on two floors.  The ground floor contains a gallery depicting how newspaper front pages have evolved over time, from small, dense print without pictures to the banner headlines we are used to today.

Museum of Journalism, Helsinki
Newspapers in the Museum of Journalism

Down in the basement we marvelled at old printing machinery used to print newspapers dating back from the mid 15th century to the end of the 20th.  The printing cellar is the same premises where the Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and other newspapers were printed from the mid 1950’s up until 1978.

Museum of Journalism, Helsinki
Newspaper front pages at the Museum of Journalism

Returning upstairs we were asked to complete a short questionnaire evaluating our visit and in return were given complimentary cappuccinos in attractive cups with newsprint designs.  The museum is quite small but certainly worth a visit and as it’s located in Helsinki’s Design District it’s not off the beaten track.

 

If you have enjoyed reading this post you may also like:

A walk to Tervesaari island, Helsinki

The Arabia district of Helsinki

A Day in Tallinn

 

Advertisement

41 thoughts on “Day 12. The Museum of Journalism Helsinki”

  6. Päivi Montola

    A comment about history: The big pale building behind the fleamarket used to be the University of Technology. It suffered severe damages in war during a Russian air raid. The story is the pilots were told to attack a big building by the waterfront and market square, meaning the president’s palace, but mad an error about the square. Also the Russian embassy behind the university was distroyed beyond reparation.
    A more likely explanation is they were supposed to destroy the Hietalahti dockyards and shipbuilding industry, in which they did not succeed.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. The Journalism museum was very interesting Ian. We don’t get a newspaper delivered to the house anymore and subscribe by iPad instead but i f we are going to have a lazy Sunday at home we sometimes buy a copy of our favourite broadsheet and then I enjoy tackling the cryptic crossword but I am quite rusty now as I don’t do it on a regular basis. How times have changed so quickly!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. I remember that market hall Marion, we spent ages looking at the food and eventually managed to choose something for lunch! There’s just so much to see and do in Helsinki – the room in the art museum looks gorgeous and very grand and I think the Journalism Museum sounds fascinating too.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. I suppose you have sun and warmth much of the time so you take it for granted but for those of us in cooler,damp climates we like to take advantage of the suns rays as they don’t appear too often. Thank you for your much appreciated comments.

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.