UK, Lewes, The Crimean War Memorial for the Finnish Prisoners

It was always my intention, while visiting UK to travel to Lewes and look for the Crimean War Memorial for the Finnish Prisoners who were brought there in 1854.

One of my most favorite moments at primary school was to sing the most famous Finnish war song from the Crimean War with the class. It was called 'Oolannin sota' (The War of Aland) and it was written by a war prisoner at the Lewes prison.

I took my son and his family with me to investigate Lewes. We had heard that the Obelisk we were looking for was in the old cemetery behind the St Paul's Church.




We had an interesting time trying to find our way to the cemetery as there were no signs or any information about the monument anywhere.




Finally we found our way through a near theatre car park and wound our way through the badly kept terrain and spied the monument we were looking for.







To me finding this obelisk was a curiosity. It had been ordained by the Russian Char, Alexander II in 1877 to commemorate the 28 Russian solders that had died during their imprisonment at Lewes. In 1957 the Soviet Government had paid to restore the obelisk.





I could see the names of the solders ingrained in the Obelisk. They were Finnish. I knew some of their stories from my research.

The Finnish prisoners had become quite a celebrity in Lewes and there were many articles written about them. They had made toys that were sold in order to provide some luxuries for them while at Lewes. Most of the solders returned home after the imprisonment in good health.



After the Crimean War, the British people collected money for Finland. They thought of Finland as a victim of the war rather than an active participant. The money that came to Finland as one of the many charitable acts that the Crimean War inspired was used to enhance the Finnish fishing fleets and ship building and finally to help the people after the famine during the 1860's.

Afterwards, I went to the Lewes Information Office asking about the obelisk. No-one at that office even knew of it's existence.

For the rest of the day, we had a wonderful time walking the streets of Lewes, shopping and having a lovely dinner at a Pizzeria.

We decided that next time we would spend more time there visiting the lovely castle and other interesting tourist destinations.

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