New Finnish ambassador to Estonia

A new Finnish ambassador started working in Tallinn in September, replacing Jaakko Blomberg, who ended four years of successful work. His replacement is Jaakko Kalela, a man who has worked in the office of the Finnish president for many years.


Mr. Jaakko Kalela and his wife Aira.

61-year-old Kalela has successfully carried out a variety of missions during his long and distinguished career. As a young graduate of state science, Kalela worked as a lecturer in Helsinki University, as a researcher in the Academy of Finland and as the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. At the age of 28, in the autumn of 1973, he became the then Finnish president Urho Kaleva Kekkonen’s foreign policy advisor.

Kalela has played a discernible role quite literally at the front line of the development of Finland’s foreign policy ever since, first and foremost working as foreign and security policy advisor to Presidents Urho Kekkonen and Mauno Koivisto. In 1984, he became director of the president’s Chancellery, and he occupied this position throughout the eras of Mauno Koivisto, Martti Ahtisaari and current president Tarja Halonen until this year.

The most significant duties are yet to come

Kalela considers his new position a challenge which is sure to provide him with plenty of new and interesting experiences. Although the role of ambassador is new to him, his breadth of experience in Finnish foreign politics will certainly stand him in good stead in the role.

"The work of an ambassador is something different for me, even though I’ve been working in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs almost every day since the end of the 1960s. You could say I’m more than familiar with the ministry and the foreign policy decision-making process.”

"Still, the challenge and responsibility are great – after all, the embassy in Tallinn is one of Finland’s most important foreign representations. I’ll be starting my work here cap in hand. The role Finland and the Finns have played in Tallinn and Estonia has changed quickly in the 15 years since Estonia regained its independence and its international position and security have stabilised," explains Kalela about the starting-up points for his work.

Kalela also stresses the special relations between Estonia and Finland, which have facilitated such a well-functioning partnership.

"Today the relationship between Estonia and Finland is one of everyday co-operation between equal partners in the EU. But in addition to that of course we have, and hopefully always will have, our own special ties through the common history we share and our geographic and linguistic proximity. That alliance I’m prepared to give all of myself to further in my role as Finnish ambassador to Estonia, at the same time making the most of the opportunity to get to know the country and its people as closely as possible, both in Tallinn and elsewhere in Estonia. This is a country and a nation I have great respect for."

Language affinity is something Kalela has personal experience of: he has spent every Tuesday morning for the past four years studying Estonian with President Tarja Halonen. (His last lesson took place in Helsinki on 30 August 2005.) By all rights, his interest in Estonia is deeply rooted.

"My first contact with Estonians came when I was only a couple of years old in a Finnish-Estonian fishing village called Kabböle in the Itä-Uusimaa archipelago," Kalela explains. “My family rented a summer house there, for three months every summer in the post-war years, from an Estonian fishing family, the Warmas. I remember the matriarch of the family was Miina Warma, a woman who had moved from Lahemaa to Kabböle in 1906 and married the brother of the then Estonian ambassador to Helsinki, Aleksander Warma. I still recall those summers at Kabböle and am still in touch with the Warma family.”

Contact with Estonia is not merely limited to Kalela’s childhood, and although maintaining it in the meantime was rendered anything but simple, the situation has now significantly changed.

"During the cold war years it wasn’t always easy to follow what was going on in Estonia, but things changed very quickly at the end of the 1980s and keeping abreast of the situation in the country and forming contacts with Estonians became a priority in Finnish foreign policy. It was around this time that I met a lot of Estonia’s most notable figures.”

Free time in the company of culture and at (summer) home

Kalela spent the recent summer months, as old Finnish custom dictates, at his summer residence, but found time for other interests as well.

"I always spend my summer break in Finland, mainly at my summer house, where there’s always plenty to do. We visited our relatives in Savo too and went to the Savonlinna opera festival and Pori Jazz."

When he’s not at his summer house, Kalela enjoys bird-watching and has recently taken up golf. Much of his time in the city involves cultural pursuits. Among his particular interests in literature are history and memoirs, while in music it’s opera, chamber music and jazz.

The new ambassador will be arriving in Tallinn with his wife Aira, who has been an active member of both UNESCO and UN social organisations. Since 1984, she has worked in the Finnish Ministry of the Environment as the director of international relations.

"Aira is used to travelling a lot, as professionally she is a very active person herself. Now she’s coming with me to Toompea to represent Finland in Estonia. She may yet have to return temporarily to Helsinki next year during Finland’s presidency of the EU though," Kalela adds.