Yearbook 2015
Aland. Before the legislative elections in September, the new party campaigned for Åland’s democracy against multiculturalism and demanded that Åland should not receive any quota refugees, especially from so-called risk countries like Syria. About a hundred refugees had previously been received in Åland. According to the Social Democrats, on the contrary, it was a fatal issue for the population to grow, and some 60 entrepreneurs called for increased immigration.
In the Finnish parliamentary elections in April, the Ålandic mandate had gone to the Center, but in the election to the Åland Lagting the Liberals got the most votes. The party increased a mandate to 7, while the Center stayed on the same number after the loss of a mandate. Moderate assembly and Social Democrats took 5 seats each.
As a result, the Social Democratic Land Council resigned, and the Center disappeared from the provincial government. New land council became Liberal Katrin Sjögren, who formed a tripartite coalition with the Liberals, Social Democrats and Moderate Assembly. The new government gained a majority with 17 of the Lagting’s 30 seats.
During the summer, Åland received a minimum museum, a classic telephone booth, 89 by 89 centimeters. In Vårdö there is now the smallest museum in the landscape, where the Åland telephone sharing team has made it possible for visitors to call with the old coin telephone for listening to telephone history.
During the year, French and German researchers published an analysis of the approximately 170-year-old champagne previously found in 168 bottles in a shipwreck in the Åland Sea. According to the researchers, the drink was well preserved but terribly sweet. The French champagne of fine brand, believed to be the world’s oldest preserved, contained at least three times as much sugar as today’s champagne. The bottles had been lying in the dark at 55 meters depth in the 2–4 degree temperature since the 1840s, according to the researchers perfect conditions.
Åland (finl. Ahvenanmaa) Archipelago of the Baltic Sea, which forms an administrative division of the Finland (1552 km 2 with 26,923 residents in 2006), located almost at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia. It is made up of over 6000 islands (of which about a hundred are inhabited) and takes its name from the main one (650 km 2), which houses the capital Mariehamn. In winter, the ice joins the Å. to the mainland. The soil is largely covered with woods. Fishing, agriculture and tourism.