Pori: Textiles and cast iron, May 29, 1960.
Cast iron pot by Sarpaneva.
Last Thursday evening, a young marketing manager and I flew to Pori (Bjørneborg in Swedish),where there are two companies that we represented, Porin Puuvila, a extile manufacturer and Rosenlew, which makes cast iron cookware. Timo Sarpaneva is the designer for both lines of products that we were working with. When we arrived at our hotel we were met by the export manager of Rosenlew, who treated us to dinner. We ate a delicous paper-wrapped whitefish ( Siika in Finnish). After dinner we enjoyed coffee and cognac and chatted until midnight. The next morning we went to the Rosenlew factory and saw how they make the cast iron pot with the removable teak handle and other casseroles that looked like sputniks. We had a quick lunch at the factory and went back to the hotel for a rest.
At three o'clock I had to be at Porin Puuvila. When I left Helsinki, the weather was sunny and warm and I wore my suit without a coat. Around two thirty a storm moved in, there was lightning and thunder and the rain came down in buckets. I did not have much choice. Luckily I managed to hail a cab right in front of the hotel door, so that i was hit only by a few drops of rain. I was met by the export manager who introduced me to the managing director. When he saw my business card, he exclaimed "You must be Latvian". As it turned out, before the second World War, he had been the salesman for Porin Puuvila in Latvia and knew the country quite well. He had been a personal friend of Jānis Rozentāls, who was one of Latvia's most famous painters and he could also say God Save Latvia in Latvian. He was very jovial and friendly and even went and got his personal raincoat for me to wear as we walked among the buildings. They employ approximately 2500 workers and manufacture all kinds of textiles. The export manager came back to my hotel where we had dinner. After dinner I went straight to the airport as my flight was leaving at seven thirty. A little before nine, I arrived at Helsinki airport.