Anssi Kela and Reino Paasilinna lived as neighbors in Käpylä.
Reino Paasilinna in 2008. PDO
Yesterday, July 21, it was reported that the former CEO of Yleisradio, a former Member of Parliament and a former member of the European Parliament Reino Paasilinna is dead. 82-year-old Paasilinna died of Parkinson’s disease.
Musician Anssi Kela is now remembering his former neighbor on his Facebook account. Kela and Paasilinna became neighbors in 2009 when Kela moved to Käpylä. A few days later, a note dropped into Kela’s mailbox, in which Paasilinna and his wife Anja welcomed Kela’s family to a toast.
– We went to ring the doorbell at the requested time. To our surprise, all the other residents of our street were invited. Anja and Reksa introduced us to our new neighbors in this way. A really nice gesture, somehow un-Finnish. We were accepted as part of the community.
Every Christmas, Anja and “Reksa” had a porridge party. Paasilinna used to give speeches at parties and tell anecdotes to the table parties.
– Having an influential neighbor was useful when men from the city appeared on the home street to paint signs on the asphalt. It turned out that the old street light poles would be replaced with new ones, and at the same time their location would be changed. The new poles would be put in completely stupid places, where they would no longer illuminate the entrances to the yards. According to them, the matter could not be influenced, the decisions had been made.
– “I’ll make a couple of calls,” Reksa said. And so the new lights were put in place of the old ones, Kela recalls.
Kela says that a few years ago, Paasilinna started to look worse. Information about the illness also reached Kela in time.
– Thank you Reksa, you were a good neighbor, Kela ends the article.
Paasilinna was married Anja Arstila-Paasilinnan with. They have three children together.