Washington Post journalist and photographer touring Finland

Pair keep web diary about their adventures

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Washington Post writer Robert G. Kaiser and photographer Lucian Perkins are currently in Finland on a three-week trip, the events of which can be followed almost in real time through their Finland Diary weblog.
      The blog is already accepting commentary from readers.
     
The itinerary is taking them to Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Kuopio, Joensuu, Kuhmo, Oulu, Tampere, and Turku.
      The two produced a similar travel diary on Siberia in 2001. Kaiser notes proudly that it is still used as teaching material in many American schools.
      He jokes that with 42 years of experience working with the Post, he is allowed to act on his own ideas.
      Kaiser’s idea was that Finland could well be the world’s most interesting country that Americans know nothing about.
      Kaiser has followed events in Finland for a long time, and he has been impressed by the country’s capacity for transformation.
     
"The first time I came to Helsinki was when I was sent by the CIA to disrupt the [communist-organised] Youth Festival in 1962", he says. "However, we didn’t know it at the time."
      The Central Intelligence Agency published a report about the covert operations much later.
      Kaiser, a 19-year-old budding journalist at the time, was persuaded to join a delegation called the "Independent Research Service" by Gloria Steinem, who was later to found the Feminist magazine Ms.
      With his knowledge of foreign languages, Kaiser’s mission in Helsinki was to help produce the French edition of a newspaper called Helsinki Youth News.
      "It was printed at half-past three in the morning in the printing press of your newspaper, when all other printing was over, lest the KGB find out", he explains.
      The seasoned journalist still wonders what the Soviets were thinking. "During the festival they conducted an atmospheric nuclear test! That was a big thing."
      Kaiser also served as the Moscow correspondent of The Washington Post in the 1970s. He would visit Helsinki to shop at Stockmann’s department store and visit the dentist. He also bought a Volvo in Finland.


Links:
  Roberg G. Kaiser and Lucian Perkins: Finland Diary
  Namebase.org website: Gloria Steinem and the CIA

Helsingin Sanomat