In the photo above: Tellervo Eronen (back then Kemppi), her mother Helena Kemppi and Erik Skutnabb.
n the 1920s there was a great "Tropic Fever" in Finland.
Various Finnish utopian communities were founded f.ex. in the West Indies, the Caribbean,
Middle America and South America.
When my grandmother Tellervo Eronen (nee Kemppi, 1922–2001) was 7 years old she moved with her parents Emil (1899–1935) and Helena Kemppi (1896–1971) to the Dominican Republic in January 1930.
The journey began from Finland's Vyborg in December 1929.
They traveled with the ship S.S. "Oberon" from Helsinki and Hanko to Kiel in Germany.
From Kiel they traveled by train to Berlin, and to France – Paris, Le Havre and Bordeaux.
From there they sailed over the Atlantic Ocean with the ship "Care Mare" to the Dominican Republic.
They came ashore in the port city Puerto Plata and finally traveled to the destination
– village of Villa Vásquez.
The Finnish vegetarian utopian community was formed there which the settlers named as "Viljavakka".
The community had 140 inhabitants at its peak.
Tellervo's childhood memoirs in the 1930s Caribbean tropic were lost for almost two decades until they were found in 2019. These texts were already thought to be lost in the winds of time but luckily they weren't. The stories have always been very precious and nostalgic to our family members. There was an unexpected adventure with an alligator, Tellervo's talking parrot Kaija, a nightly ant army surprise... One of the more peculiar happening with a historical context was when the land's long-term dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1891–1961) invited a young Tellervo-señorita to join him for a dance at a fiesta organised for him...
It was always Tellervo's dream to compose a book about her memories in the 1930s Dominican Republic
– the finding of these texts has finally made it possible.
The Finnish utopian immigrancy of the 1920s and 1930s to tropical countries and to the Carribbean is very rare as a book topic. Especially when the experiences are heard straight from a contemporary person of that era. This website is dedicated for the book Viljavakka: Memories of Villa Vásquez – My Childhood in the 1930s Dominican Republic as a Finnish Utopian Settler, and related topics of Viljavakka and tropical Finnish utopian immigrancy.
You can see f.ex. rare old photographs and and hear music inspired by the Finnish tropical experiences of the 1930s.
The pages will be updated while the project advances – follow the:Official Blog (in English)
Facebook-blog (in English)
The News -section.
The book will be published firstly in Finnish in the coming years. If you are interested on this topic and in publishing an English translation of the book, please contact me via e-mail: jto.eronen@gmail.com
Rest of the site is currently in Finnish only. If interested on this book and website, mail me and a translation may come sooner!
— Jukka Eronen, October 15th 2019 in Helsinki (e-mail)
n the 1920s there was a great "Tropic Fever" in Finland.
Various Finnish utopian communities were founded f.ex. in the West Indies, the Caribbean,
Middle America and South America.When my grandmother Tellervo Eronen (nee Kemppi, 1922–2001) was 7 years old she moved with her parents Emil (1899–1935) and Helena Kemppi (1896–1971) to the Dominican Republic in January 1930.
The journey began from Finland's Vyborg in December 1929.
They traveled with the ship S.S. "Oberon" from Helsinki and Hanko to Kiel in Germany.
From Kiel they traveled by train to Berlin, and to France – Paris, Le Havre and Bordeaux.
From there they sailed over the Atlantic Ocean with the ship "Care Mare" to the Dominican Republic.
They came ashore in the port city Puerto Plata and finally traveled to the destination
– village of Villa Vásquez.
The Finnish vegetarian utopian community was formed there which the settlers named as "Viljavakka".
The community had 140 inhabitants at its peak.Tellervo's childhood memoirs in the 1930s Caribbean tropic were lost for almost two decades until they were found in 2019. These texts were already thought to be lost in the winds of time but luckily they weren't. The stories have always been very precious and nostalgic to our family members. There was an unexpected adventure with an alligator, Tellervo's talking parrot Kaija, a nightly ant army surprise... One of the more peculiar happening with a historical context was when the land's long-term dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (1891–1961) invited a young Tellervo-señorita to join him for a dance at a fiesta organised for him...
It was always Tellervo's dream to compose a book about her memories in the 1930s Dominican Republic
– the finding of these texts has finally made it possible.The Finnish utopian immigrancy of the 1920s and 1930s to tropical countries and to the Carribbean is very rare as a book topic. Especially when the experiences are heard straight from a contemporary person of that era. This website is dedicated for the book Viljavakka: Memories of Villa Vásquez – My Childhood in the 1930s Dominican Republic as a Finnish Utopian Settler, and related topics of Viljavakka and tropical Finnish utopian immigrancy.
You can see f.ex. rare old photographs and and hear music inspired by the Finnish tropical experiences of the 1930s.
The pages will be updated while the project advances – follow the:
The book will be published firstly in Finnish in the coming years. If you are interested on this topic and in publishing an English translation of the book, please contact me via e-mail: jto.eronen@gmail.com
Rest of the site is currently in Finnish only. If interested on this book and website, mail me and a translation may come sooner!
— Jukka Eronen, October 15th 2019 in Helsinki (e-mail)