NATO's only Lenin Museum Tampere's name criticized and misunderstood - director Kalle Kallio
Museum director Kalle Kallio emphasizes that everything related to personal worship has been removed from the exhibition.
Kalle Kallio, director of the Lenin Museum, considers it important that statues and sculptures take on new meanings in different contexts.
Lenin statues will no longer be seen in the Finnish street scene, but museums will.
According to Kalle Kallio, the director of the Lenin Museum, who has been dubbed “Finland's most hated museum”, Russia's attack on Ukraine has not been more visible in the feedback received by the museum. However, Kallio emphasizes that the criticism received by the museum has continued despite the fact that it was renovated in 2016.
In connection with the reform, everything related to personal worship was removed from the exhibition.
- It is surprising that despite all the reforms, it is believed that the museum should not be open. However, people demanding the closure of a museum are often those who have not been there. They have the impression that the museum is a certain kind and they oppose that image, Kallio describes.
According to Kalle Kallio, the renewed exhibition now also tells about "prison camps, dissidents and all the problems of the Soviet system." Photo: Anna Sirén / Yle
As for the statues, the line of the museum director is clear: the statues are just statues. In the case of the Lenin statues, in particular, the removal from the street scene is not fully justified, according to the director of the museum.
- I think it is a bit of an overreaction to the war in Ukraine. We will no longer invent what could be boycotted once the Jokers and Teboil have been used. Even when we should boycott a little, we find out that the mites bring Lenin, Kallio says.
The director of the museum emphasizes that the removal of one statue inevitably raises the question of the fate of the other statues as well.
- It would be good to be consistent and logical here. In Turku, the statue of Lenin was removed, but the statue of Alexander the First remained in the street scene. He conquered Finland and the troops he led killed Finnish and Swedish soldiers. In addition, he was monopolistic, Kallio continues.
A work commissioned by the Russian Consulate and the City of Turku. The statue, which was commissioned in 2012, depicts the meeting of the Russian Emperor Alexander I and the Crown Prince Charles Juhana of Sweden in Turku in 1812. Photo: Minna Rosvall / Yle
The first Lenin Museum of the Western Military League?
According to its director, the existence of the museum is important because it helps to understand the common history of Finland and the Soviet Union.
- Our histories are really intertwined, if we think of the civil war or World War II, for example. The same applies to the Cold War and Eastern trade or Finnishization in general. None of the above can be understood without understanding the history of the Soviet Union, Kallio states
That, I think, is a bit of an overreaction to the war in Ukraine. We will no longer invent what could be boycotted once the Jokers and Teboil have been used. Even when there was a bit of a boycott, we came up with the idea that "Mites bring Lenin?"
Kalle Kallio
According to Kallio, the museum continues to receive criticism for its name, which is associated with a lot of misunderstandings.
- It might make you wonder if the name lasts longer.
The name change is possible, but not simple, according to the museum director. Kallio also believes in the existence of the museum in the future. In addition to the only Lenin Museum in the West, a new slogan may be introduced in marketing.
- We will be the only Lenin museum in NATO, Kallio laughs
Source: YLE
