From der Angstweg to Alexandria


Der Angstweg, or Ahdistuspolku, was half-way opened to the public in July 2017, in Sigvartsby, Hamina, where the library of Alexandria was found again a few years earlier (in January 2013). The path leads to a field nearby, and there one could hear the city church bells ringing. The library has a  collection of cultural and esoteric history, including a few gems. When I began collecting the books in the nineties, I did not know there would be a time when books have become rarities. Now the hour has come, and I am grateful that I continued the work during those lazy days when it seemed like a fool's quest. Alexandria has even received "a donation" from the library of Hamina; a collection of poetry books in Finnish. All the necessary items of cultural history are there to remind us of the past century's crazy or evil undertakings and erratic wanderings, from Hitler's Mein Kampf to Lenin's State and Revolution (in Finnish, among dozens of Marxist classics from the Soviet printing houses), and many things in between. Some hidden treasures balance the horrors; books like Pekka Ervast's Christosophisia peruskysymyksiä I-II and Friedrich Rittelmeyer's letters on Meditation (in Deutsch of course, dating from the times of crisis). 
  There are memories in the form of dedications, like the late Colin Wilson's The Outsider, fourth edition from 1956, with "warm regards". I met him at the library of Pasila in 2007, and he wondered where on earth did I get that book. And I still wonder, too. Even Aarni Kouta's less known Lusiferin kannel (signed by the maker) and Ristin tie are there. Showing the metamorphosis of a poet and thinker who was trying to get a hold of the higher spiritual truths opening in the darkness and light of the 20th century.
  I have obtained a few priceless ones from the Sophia cultural centre in Kallvik, like John Meyendorff's classic Byzantine Theology, with a dedication from the writer himself to the Archbishop Paul of Finland, and other works by the Orthodox Masters. Alexandria is located in a private house, but who knows, it may be open to public some day. And it has been possible to loan books from there, since the very beginning.