Reijo Kela has never given an official interpretation. Each visitor decides what they see.

Some read it as a tribute to the dead of the Gulag, silent under Stalin's labour camps. Others see the fallen of the Winter War — Soviet and Finnish soldiers lost in the 1939-40 conflict that defined this border region. Others see the disappeared — anyone who vanished without a grave, without a name. And some, simply, see themselves: quiet, lined up, waiting, facing the road.

The silence here is not absence. It is a choice.

There is no entry. There is no panel. There is no audioguide. You park on the verge, you walk a hundred metres into the field, and the figures begin. The first time you see them they look like a crowd. Then you walk among them and they become individuals — each one with its own jacket, its own scarf, its own posture toward the road.

The best time to visit is at sunrise or sunset, when low fog often covers the field and the figures emerge from the mist. In winter the meadow is buried under a metre of snow and only the heads remain visible. In summer, dragonflies cross between the figures.

The figures are not a museum. They are a piece of community art that the residents of Suomussalmi maintain themselves. Walk among them, photograph them, sit silently with them — but do not climb on them, do not move them, do not rearrange the scarves. They have stood here for thirty years exactly because no one has asked them to perform.

If you want to know more, the village's tourism office can show you a small documentary about Reijo Kela's work and the original 1988 installation.

Bidaiatzen visited Hiljainen Kansa in May 2026 and brought back about 200 photographs. The selection is in this gallery and on Instagram @vidaiatzen.