A 60 euro party at the Palace
Men do the dazzling at this year's gala reception
18,000 nibbles of various descriptions, 1,800 invited guests from the cream of society and elsewhere, 150 flower arrangements.
Finland's 92nd Independence Day Gala Reception, and present were three Presidents: the incumbent Tarja Halonen, and her two prdecessors Martti Ahtisaari and Mauno Koivisto.
This year as before the party was swanky and somewhat sweaty - the Palace is renowned for being like a lukewarm sauna when nearly 2,000 people are crammed in.
However, in these straitened times of recession and job-cuts, for once some people asked what it all cost?
The answer is that the event cost approximately the same as last year, namely 112,000 euros, according to a Palace spokesperson.
In other words, around EUR 60.00 a head.
If things had been scaled back a tiny bit on the catering front, the flamboyant dresses brought out for the occasion were toned down rather more: there were quite a few white and black numbers that showed more reserve than is customary.
It is standard practice for the tabloids to seek out the "Queen of the Ball", but on this occasion it was rather hard to find any outstanding dresses, while there were three stand-out numbers from the male guests.
Pride of place went to Professor Howard (Howy) Jacobs in his kilt and bovver-boots, closely followed by MP Veltto Virtanen in probably the largest and loudest tie on show at the event. He was also wearing a jaunty beret.
Against opposition like this, the women in their wedding-cake outfits and some stunningly unsuccessful electric blue gowns were beaten firmly into second place.
One who chose a less-is-more look and apparently won points for it was the Social Democrat MP Maria Guzenina-Richardson, and the novelist Sofi Oksanen was very striking, but then she always is.
You can judge for yourselves from some of the pictures shown below.
Note: The pictures linked below in the gallery DO actually have English captions, but regrettably they are rather hard to find. If using Internet Explorer, place the cursor over the centre of the image to reveal the captions. If you are too far to the left or right, you will get "edellinen kuva" (previous image) or "seuraava kuva" (next image) instead, but with a little juggling you should be able to get an English-language caption to appear. The confusion is caused by the technical realisation of the gallery, where each image is also a link to the next/previous one. The images have been left in this gallery format for the simple reason that to place 30 pictures next to a story of this length would have looked extremely odd. We apologise for the inconvenience.
More on this subject:
 Finland celebrates its 92nd Independence Day amid recession
See also:
A gallery of snapshots from the Palace (captions are in Finnish; click on the bottom right of the image for more)
Helsingin Sanomat
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