Luomus

Last year, the public venues of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus – the Natural History Museum and two botanic gardens – welcomed a total of 266,000 nature lovers of different ages.

The increase in visitor numbers was particularly marked at the botanic gardens.

The Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden, comprising glasshouses and an outdoor garden area, welcomed some 84,000 plant enthusiasts. The number of people visiting the outdoor garden is an estimate, as the outdoor area can currently be entered free of charge and visitor numbers are not counted.

The Kumpula Botanic Garden had approximately 18,000 visitors. The season began with the traditional Vappushokkelo family event, organised by biology students and attracting close to 2,800 visitors.

More than 164,000 people visited the Natural History Museum last year.

The high visitor numbers can be partly attributed to the exceptionally long heatwave in summer 2018. In addition, having undergone extensive construction work, the Kaisaniemi outdoor garden was open to the public for the whole year, as were the glasshouses that were closed for almost two months in summer 2017 due to repairs.

A record number of 3,600 plant aficionados participated in the popular summer tours of the redesigned Kaisaniemi outdoor garden.

More than 800 people attended the Water Lily Night event at Kaisaniemi in anticipation of the blooming of the Santa Cruz water lily, Victoria cruziana. However, the water lily refused to bloom in front of the crowd, only bursting into flower the following night. The audience was pleased all the same, and people continued to visit to see the water lily even after the event.

The Kumpula garden drew visitors not only thanks to its varied plants and the sunny summer weather, but also thanks to the new Kumpu summer café, as well as the geological collections on display during public events and on a few days a month in the impressive manor building. The collections will be accessible more often as of early May when the summer season begins. For opening hours and information on all Luomus events, please see the Luomus website (in Finnish only).

Various events, workshops and information sessions at the public venues also attracted visitors during the year.

“Luomus also offers a wide variety of guided tours that can be booked in advance. Our freelance guides introduce nature topics to groups ranging from nursery- and school-aged children to adults”, explains Leena Gustavsson, head of the Luomus Public Outreach Team.

Close to 900 tours were booked last year. Over the year, booked tours, free tours included in the entrance fee, workshops and winter and autumn holiday events for schoolchildren attracted a total of more than 35,000 visitors.

“On the whole, interest in nature and related knowledge and research is on the rise. This is due to, for example, increasing public discussion on major themes, such as climate change and the sixth wave of extinction as well as humanity’s role in all this. Luomus offers its visitors a mix of experience and scientific knowledge,” says Leif Schulman, director of Luomus.

For the locations, opening hours and entrance fees of the Luomus venues as well as other details, please visit luomus.fi/en. The Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus is part of the University of Helsinki.

Further information:

• Leif Schulman, director, phone +358 2941 28884
• Leena Gustavsson, head of the Luomus Public Outreach Team, phone +358 2941 28856