Memoir Matti Klemola was an old-school report writer who lived abroad journalism until the last

Foreign supplier Matti Klemola died in Turku on February 6, 2022 after a long illness. He was 76 years old, born in Helsinki on November 12, 1945.

Among Klemola’s colleagues, Klemis spent almost his entire career in the newspapers of Sanomat. Already as a 16-year-old schoolboy, he earned earnings in the proofreading of Helsingin Sanomat.

Studying was not for Klemola. He did not stay long at the university. Immediately after military service, Klemola joined Ilta-Sanomat in May 1966. In 1972, he switched to Weekly News.

World bubbling. In the October 1973 war in Yom Kippur, Klemola reported from the hills of Golan, where the sounds of war dominated: “A strange hum, a vicious vonga, followed by two innocuous feelings. Black smoke statues rise into the cloudless sky less than half a kilometer away. ”

Klemola’s style was bloody, old-school reportage. The “sticky oil lemu of Israel’s roaring tanks filled the hot air,” and as a contrast, the peace of Tel Aviv was only violated by the roaring roar of the piles and the monotonous signals of the night birds.

The 27-year-old Klemola stated that “one can only hope from one’s heart that this war, which has already cost many lives, will be the last in the Middle East”.

In winter 1976 Klemola joins Helsingin Sanomat’s foreign delivery. The language skills of Sanoma Osakeyhtiö were marked “English, German, Swedish”. More than a quarter of a century of HS began. Klemola’s articles last a great time.

“The bow of a black Mersu bites miles of oil gravel and ashes from a cigarette in the bosom of a rational man sitting in the back seat,” Klemola wrote in July 1977. The man who smoked next to him was from West Germany, named Willy Brandt.

Matti Klemola was known to be appreciated in Hesar in the 1980s. He represented solid skills that calmed the competition between the left and the right.

Klemola helped readers find out about the world. He had embraced the hard and demanding journalism of the West after being a correspondent in both Stockholm and Bonn.

From his office he had already experienced it, but the job of a news officer, or second-in-command, was enough for him. He knew Aatos Erko, the main owner of Sanomat, among others.

Klemola did not try to take advantage of his acquaintances. Instead, he put his know-how into Sunday delivery.

In 1993, Klemola once again left as a correspondent, this time in London. In his final years of work, he was an international editor and an inexhaustible source of information. He retired in 2003.

Klemola’s specialties were hard security and weapons technology. Expertise was missed.

Life did not always treat Matti Klemola with silk gloves. Huge grief befell him in 1980. Elina’s daughter was born in June but died of kidney damage at the age of five months.

In the name of frankness – a trait that Klemis appreciated – it is worth noting that he himself did not always offer silk gloves for life. However, there was an indication of Klemola’s willpower that he overcame his problems and spent the rest of his life sober.

Retirement years in Turku were a serene time with his wife Tarjamaija. The relationship with his son Mikko was also important and close.

In the mornings, Klemola went for a walk with the French Bulldogs. In the market cafe, he arranged the world in proper order.

World not completed. The last years of life were overshadowed by Alzheimer’s disease, but Matti Klemola did not leave foreign journalism.

He made Hesar’s foreign pages in a nursing home in Turku. He spoke English at some times, German at times, and Swedish at times.

Was at a NATO meeting in Iceland. Called from the Balkans from the game cave but spoke in a whisper as the place was full of mafia parts. Also called from Tel Aviv Airport.

Perhaps in Tel Aviv there was the roar of the Cascades. Klemis did what he loved until the end.

Heikki Aittokoski

Kari Huhta

The authors are Matti Klemola’s colleagues.