Esplanadi

This guide to Esplanadi in Helsinki centers on sculptor Ville Vallgren's bronze fountain, unveiled without ceremony in September 1908 at the edge of this park. You'll hear how the nude figure of a sea nymph scandalized suffragists, nationalists and the labor press alike, and how Vallgren defended her from Paris. It follows the prank students pulled within a year of the unveiling, the decades it took police to formally bless the ritual, and how the tradition eventually moved to a fixed evening hour. Best experienced standing near the fountain itself.