Havis Amanda: the mermaid who caused scandal and became the heart of Helsinki

By GoPocket · 29 Jun 2026 · 3 min read

In the heart of the old port of Helsinki, where the open-air market smells of smoked fish and hot coffee, a young woman in bronze emerges silently from the water, surrounded by seals and four sea lions spouting jets of water. Her name is Havis Amanda, and for over a century she has been the unofficial symbol of the Finnish capital. Yet when she was unveiled in 1908, that naked and serene figure horrified half the city. Her story is a perfect mirror of the Finnish soul: reserved on the surface, deeply passionate underneath.

A courageous commission in difficult times

We are at the beginning of the twentieth century. Finland is still part of the Russian Empire, caught in a vice of forced Russification that threatens language, culture, and national identity. In this tense climate, the city of Helsinki decides to beautify the market square on the waterfront with a sculptural fountain. The commission is given to sculptor Ville Vallgren, a Finnish artist who at the time lived and worked in Paris, immersed in the atmosphere of Art Nouveau and European avant-gardes. The choice of a 'Parisian' artist was no accident: Helsinki wanted to declare itself European, modern, capable of competing with the great capitals of the continent.

The scandal that shook respectable society

The official inauguration, in the summer of 1908, was anything but triumphant. The statue depicts a young woman completely naked, her body soft and natural, her gaze directed toward the open sea. For Helsinki — a Protestant city, sober, accustomed to a certain moral austerity — it was a shock. The newspapers were bitterly divided: on one side those crying out immorality and demanding that the sculpture be removed or at least 'covered', on the other those defending it as a work of extraordinary beauty and a sign of cultural maturity for the nation.

The sea nymph as an allegory of Finland

Beyond the controversies, Havis Amanda carries with her a profound symbolic meaning. Many interpreters of the time — and later art historians — read in the figure a personification of Finland itself: a young land, just emerged from the waters of time, that looked out on the world with shy but determined beauty. In those years the country was trying to define its own cultural identity distinct from the Swedish and Russian ones, and the image of youth rising from the sea had an enormously powerful narrative force.

Walpurgis Night: when the statue puts on a hat

Every year, on the night of April 30th to May 1st, something strange and wonderful happens in the market square. Thousands of university students gather around the fountain to celebrate Vappu, the Finnish spring festival that mixes pagan traditions, academic rituals, and a certain cheerful confusion. The climax of the evening is precise and ritualistic: a student climbs onto the statue and places on Havis Amanda's head the white cap of a university student, the lakki.

Vallgren, the artist forgotten in his homeland

Behind the most famous statue of Helsinki stands a man who spent most of his life far from Finland. Ville Vallgren was born in the southern part of the country in the second half of the nineteenth century, but Paris seduced him early and he remained there for decades, accumulating international recognition, working for French collectors and participating in great universal exhibitions. In his homeland he was almost unknown.

Why a statue can tell the story of an entire city

Havis Amanda is not simply a beautiful bronze sculpture. She is an emotional landmark for Helsinki: the place where people arrange to meet, where they gather at moments of collective celebration, where tourists stop and locals pass by barely looking at her — as happens with all things loved since forever. In a city that struggles to show itself, that guards its beauty with discretion, having at its center a naked and serene figure gazing at the sea is almost an act of silent defiance.

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