Aurora Karamzin oaks

A toilet fit for the Czar of a…

Aurora Karamzin was supposed to get married to the love of her live and on the eve of the wedding her husband to be died. She was however married a couple of times and she was left a fortune by her first husband.

If you travel around Helsinki you will see many streets named after her, but recently in a Helsinki Sanomat article I came across reference to the place where she lived in Espoo called Träskända Manor Park,

It is in a bit of disrepair at the moment but there are plans to restore it to its former glory. I visited the park to take some pictures and what is more impressive than the building are the oak trees.

Age catches up with all of us…

There is one tree there called "The Empress" which is over two hundred years old, and when walking through the grounds I came across two women who were gathering acorns. They worked for a plant nursery and hoped to grow "Aurora Karamzin oaks"

The ground is littered with acorns and I asked the older woman if I could have a few acorns to see if I could grow them. We talked briefly about the process of vernalization to get the acorns to sprout in the spring.

I really like the idea of having a Aurora Karamzim oak. My father had an oak in his garden and he often quoted the following words to me.

Bough of the Empress oak at Tr…

"He that planteth a tree is a servent of God. He createth happiness for many generations. Faces that hath not seen him shall bless him"

I think that this is so true for Aurora Karamzim. She many be remembered by street names and the hospitals that she established, and for all the good that she has done, but it is the trees that she planted that still bring joy... at least to my heart.