Messengers
The Messengers exhibition will feature several compelling features that mark the important moments in the history of the postal services. Posti is the oldest transport company in Finland. It has come a long way from the days of the system of peasant farmers who started delivering mail on foot in 1638. Along the way there have been many changes and stories, which the Postal Museum delivers to museum guests using various methods. The exhibition provides visitors not only with new experiences but also with information and fresh insight produced by researchers.
Visitors can listen to touching letters from wartime years or take a trip down memory lane to the 1980s. People used to send audio letters then and submitted entries to competitions on postcards; they also began ordering more and more products by mail order. Many jobs that are now done over the internet were done by post.
Nostalgic films about mail lorry journeys take viewers to beautiful summer days and winters in the Lappish fells, while map presentations describe the changes in traffic and post offices. Museum guests will also be able to take a peek at the correspondence of Akseli Gallén-Kallela, as well as the studios of his fellow artists.
All stamps issued in Finland will be on display. The exhibition will feature a room of a boy who collected stamps in the 1950s; there is a world map in the room with stamps from all over the world that can be studied through a telescope. The mail route that crossed the Åland Islands was the most perilous route in Europe. Visitors can become engrossed in the dangers by listening to an audio drama. The exhibition is for the whole family, and children will find many things to explore and learn. The old favourites will still be there: Ahto-Kustaa the talking mail horse and the first mail lorry, the Adler from 1911.