I know this message should actually belong to finnish coins section, but:

Did you know, that in finnish coins under russia (1864-1917) there is a lion in a shield in front of the 2-headed eagle and under the lion is a sword. The sword represents russia which the finnish lion tramples.
I bet the russians didn't know that at the time. The shield model is much older than the coins (Finland under Sweden).

See for example silver coins here:

http://www.netikka.net/jmi/suomikolikot/1894.html

Janne

How did you come to this spectacular interpretation? Or maybe, in Finnish schools they like it to be so

It might be true, but can you offer proof? It just seems to good to be true, like JS on the Roosevelt Dime being Joseph Stalin's initials.

Not exactly an urban legend methinks, although the symbols seem to refer to earlier Swedish-Russian conflicts:

"(...) the general consensus has been that the symbol of the lion is derived from the arms of the Folkung family, which are included in the royal arms of Sweden. The two swords were borrowed from the Karelian coat of arms" (...) "The placing of the curved Russian sabre beneath the lion's paws is undoubtedly a reflection of the political situation at this time. Sweden and Russia were almost constantly at war, and the Swedes made use of this propaganda device to imply that they had the upper hand over their enemies."

http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/sho...intNWSAID=27079

Christian

Exactly, this was known long before we became part of Russia. Look at this swedish coin from 1606 (scroll down, left picture, upper part):

http://www.tradera.com/20_Mark_1606-auktion-41812807

It's still there:

Finnish euro-coins: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_euro_coins

Have a nice day!:)

Janne

Interestingly I never really paid much attention - thanks for drawing attention Worth reading

I might be able to understand the situation between Russia and Sweden but how is that related to Finland other than Finland being sandwiched between Russia and Sweden? Sorry but I have almost no idea about Finnish history

Wow guys, that's really interesting!

Never thought that Finnish coat of arms shows Sweden trampling Russia, but it's really true

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Finland

Thanks a lot for this historical education

I had the generalized impression that Finland even viewed Sweden as an oppressor, when they weren't being run over by the Russians, it was by the Swedes.

Maybe some of our resident Finns here will alight to this and share their thoughts and enlighten us all.

I have never heard that before. I know little of Finland's history other than Finland was apparently a more or less autonomous Grand Duchy in the latter portion of the late 19th and earlier 20th century, followed by civil war between nationalist and Tsarist forces, which the nationalists won.

When I was a child, I remember a Finnish family with whom my parents were friends. I knew very little about Finland, but I did understand that they were very proud that the Finns had defeated Stalin's attempts to invade Finland during WWII. The sense I had as a child was that Finns were tough and no pushover.

The Finns were also astute enough to know when to fold them too, in 1941 Finland allied with Germany and invaded the USSR north of Leningrad in an attempt to take back Karelia. In 1944 seeing that the tide was turning, they turned on their old allies the Germans and kicked them out. To appease the USSR they let them use a couple of naval bases on Finnish territory until about 1955 or so and stayed out of NATO, but they also managed to stay out of being invaded by the USSR and communized.

It's quite well known around here. The curved sword representing Russia can be found on the COA of Karelia(Finnish) too.

The fighting sides in our civil war were whites (nationalists) and reds (communists). The communist "Kansanvaltuuskunta" even issued its own coins, a 5 penniä in 1918 with special obverse. A 10 penniä coin was planned too but never minted. I've heard that the Kansanvaltuuskunta (People's Comissariat or something similar) minted some old 25 penniä 1917 coins of the provisional government. They continued printing tsarist banknotes.
I guess there were not much tsarists in Finland at that time any more, among the whites were monarchists but they wanted a German King (Prince Friedrich Karl of Hessen). Nicholas II wasn't too popular after around 1899 because of russification, and he was already held as a prisoner by bolsheviks and soon murdered.

The King we never got :

Instead of finding some German Prince, they should have found the most beautiful girl in all of Finland and made her Queen.

They found her. She is seen by thousands of Finns every morning when they eat their porridge:


The Elovena-girl

A-ha! I see a sickle ... now where does she hide the hammer?



Christian

If you have to ask, we do not want to know

And she's holding it in her LEFT hand!

I was browsing on virtual.finland.fi and found this short article about Finnish and related languages.

Among a number of distinctive features listed as common to those languages is "no equivalent of the verb to have" which would seem to make it difficult to communicate possession. If trading with another collector, one would need a way to communicate which coins are needed and which are not. I have difficulty imagining how to communicate that without "to have" as a verb.

Certainly Finns must have one or more ways of communicating such things in Finnish.

Another interesting feature listed is the "absence of gender (the same Finnish pronoun hän denotes both he and she)". I have noticed that some people from the Philippines use "he" and "she" as being almost interchangeable when speaking in English. It is my understanding that Tagalog has a similar fuzziness (if not actual absence) of gender and that might be why.

As I know, in Hungarian language too doesn't exist male or female gender...
About to verb "to have", it is obsolete in communism... there nobody does not have anything... The conclusion can be that the Finns were prepared to became commies long time ago...

There still is a very small but noisy Communist party in Finland that even maintains a Lenin museum.

If the Elovena-girl is a member, I'd probably join.

Да, она красивы, Я коммунистам!