Finland - Winter Games in Lahti
1971 Silver 25 Markkaa 36mm (26.42 grams) 0.500 Silver (0.4228 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 56, Schön# 64 | Engraver: Antti Neuvonen
25 MARKKAA SUOMI FINLAND, Hills with ski trail, denomination at left.
MM 1978 LAHTI, Cross-country skiing athlete. You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.  Lahti Ski Games a yearly international nordic skiing tournament. The games last for three days, during which participants compete in cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined.
In the nearly 90-year history of the Lahti Ski Games the fireworks seen on Saturday night have become one of the highlights of the event. The goal of establishing the games was to get a competition similar to the Holmenkollen Ski Festival in Finland. The cross-country skiing stadium & ski jump stadium is together with Holmenkollen in Oslo possibly the best stadium for such events in the world. From the large covered seater stand can the attenders see the skiers, first at the top of the hill on the opposite side, after a couple of seconds without possibility to see then, they then come out of a part of the surrounding woods, down a slope which ends in a dangerous left turn, and now the skiers are inside the stadium the long U-turn with the finish just below the covered stand. Most of the hill below the slope which leads into the stadium and 2/3 of the "final U", is terraced with stands. If necessary, presumably close to 100.000 people can watch the end of the races inside the stadium. Within Nordic Skiing is Lahti something like what old Wembley Stadium was during an FA Cup Final. Also the ski-jumping arena is large, but there are quite a few of that kind also elsewhere. The idea for the games came from a Finnish legend, Lauri Pihkala in 1922. He wrote an article about a competition equal to the Holmenkollen Ski Festival after the double win of Anton Collin and Tapani Niku at Holmenkollen the same year. In the article Pihkala suggested Lahti as the location for the competition because of the city’s location and grounds.  Finlandd, officially the Republic of Finland (Finnish: Suomen tasavalta, Swedish: Republiken Finland) is a country in Northern Europe bordering the Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and Gulf of Finland, between Norway to the north, Sweden to the northwest, and Russia to the east. Finland is a Nordic country and is situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia. The capital and the largest city is Helsinki.
 Finland was inhabited when the last ice age ended, approximately 9000BCE. The first settlers left behind artefacts that present characteristics shared with those found in Estonia, Russia, and Norway. The earliest people were hunter-gatherers, using stone tools. The first pottery appeared in 5200BCE, when the Comb Ceramic culture was introduced. The arrival of the Corded Ware culture in southern coastal Finland between 3000 and 2500BCE may have coincided with the start of agriculture. The Bronze Age and Iron Age were characterised by extensive contacts with other cultures in the Fennoscandian and Baltic regions and the sedentary farming inhabitation increased towards the end of Iron Age. At the time Finland had three main cultural areas -Southwest Finland, Tavastia and Karelia- as reflected in contemporary jewellery. .svg/220px-EU-Finland_(orthographic_projection).svg.png) From the late 13th century, Finland gradually became an integral part of Sweden through the Northern Crusades and the Swedish part-colonisation of coastal Finland, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the first European state to grant all adult citizens the right to vote, and the first in the world to give all adult citizens the right to run for public office. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent. In 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Red Guard supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the White Guard, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the country became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla, Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, but retaining independence. Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era. Finland joined the OECD in 1969, the NATO Partnership for Peace in 1994, the European Union in 1995, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in 1997,[19] and finally the Eurozone at its inception, in 1999. Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialisation, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. After World War II, the Soviet Union demanded war reparations from Finland not only in money but also in material, such as ships and machinery. This forced Finland to industrialise. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive welfare state based on the Nordic model, resulting in widespread prosperity and one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. In 2015, Finland was ranked first in the World Human Capital[25] and the Press Freedom Index and as the most stable country in the world during 2011-2016 in the Fragile States Index,[26] and second in the Global Gender Gap Report. A large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. |
