Virtala painted a Ukrainian flag on the parking lot of the Russian Consul General because he wants to wake up people to do something for Ukraine.
From Tampere Jarno Virtala has recently received a phone call from the Southwestern Finland police on Wednesday afternoon.
The reason behind the call was that the parking lot of the Russian Consulate General in Turku got a new look on Thursday. Virtala drove straight to Turku and painted a Ukrainian flag on the parking lot.
The idea for the rapture came from stories in Helsingin Sanomat. Virtala decided to do the rapture after he had read HS the thingwhich dealt with the protest of those living in the same building as the Russian consul general and the parking lot arranged for the diplomat.
The news of the beginning of the week about Russian missile attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine also created a feeling that something had to be done.
Virtala says that he got inspiration for the rapture from Russia’s staged referendums in eastern Ukraine.
“I decided that I will hold a one-man referendum on whether the parking lot belongs to the Russian Federation or Ukraine. That’s what happened in that referendum, that the place belongs to Ukraine.”
Read more: The presence of the Russian diplomat irritates the neighborhood in Turku – Residents started a counter-campaign
Read more: Mayor Minna Arve asks the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to act: “Turu does not need the presence of the Russian state”
First Virtala considered dropping a concrete pig into the box. However, it felt like a tease.
“Painting the flag signals that we are on Ukraine’s side here.”
Virtala wants to show his message both to the Russian Consulate General and to people passing by.
He hopes that seeing the flag will wake up others to do something for Ukraine, for example to donate money or help Ukrainians in Finland.
Jarno Virtala painted the Ukrainian flag on the parking lot of the Consul General in a couple of hours on Wednesday. He took a picture of himself while on vacation painting.
For painting it took a few hours. Virtala says that a man who passed by, whose spouse is Ukrainian, helped him paint for a while.
According to Virtala, a few police cars also drove by, but they did not intervene in the situation.
When Virtala got the flag painted, the Russian consul general came out of his apartment with Virtala and started taking pictures of him.
“From the looks of it, he wasn’t happy at all.”
Virtala thought beforehand whether the act was legal. However, he is not afraid of legal consequences. He thought that it was allowed to paint on the parking lot, and he did not touch Russian property.
“If there is laundry, I will talk to the city of Turku. There was no material damage or personal injury. The flag wears out, and if it gets torn, you can paint over it.”
But why did the police call Virtala when he was having coffee at a gas station on his way from Turku to Tampere?
According to Virtala, they wanted to find out if he thought that the flag could attract vandalism and other activities that require police protection.
“I certainly don’t hope for that. I said that if something comes up, I’ll go back and take a jug of black paint with me.”
According to Rintala, a few residents of the housing association were also worried about the same thing.
So far, however, there have been no unpleasant sanctions for Rintala. He hopes there will be no problems.
“The purpose of the rapture was to provoke us to do good things.”
The flag painted by Jarno Virtala was the first to tell Turku Sanomat.
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