Once, the Baltic was so clear sailors steered by reefs beneath the surface. In the shallows drifted tufts of green—Cladophora glomerata, “Ahti’s beard,” recalling the sea god and his consort Vellamo. Once a shelter for life, these strands now warn of imbalance.
The Baltic is a threshold, a shifting membrane of the North. Land rose, boundaries moved, and its present life is less than 4,000 years old. Shallow, brackish, enclosed — the sea remains unsettled.
Bearded stones remember the age of ice and water, when the earth trembled beneath retreating giants. Glaciers carved valleys, and floods tore across continents.
In their wake came shifting seas: the Baltic Ice Lake high above today’s waters; the Yoldia Sea, when the ocean broke through; the Ancylus Lake, sealed by rising land; and the brackish Littorina Sea, alive with periwinkles. Long before, the Eemian Sea had drowned Finland’s shores, teeming with life now forgotten.
Now, the sea lies clouded. Divine green beards thicken, flourishing in poisoned waters, warning of something darker. Each summer, mats of cyanobacteria spread, fed by rivers, fields, and cities—Anabaena, Aphanizomenon, Nodularia—names that unravel worlds.
Now, the sea lies clouded. Divine green beards thicken, flourishing in poisoned waters, warning of something darker. Each summer, mats of cyanobacteria spread, fed by rivers, fields, and cities—Anabaena, Aphanizomenon, Nodularia—names that unravel worlds.
The Baltic renews slowly, its waters turning only in decades. Nutrients linger, choking the sea. Blooms smother bladderwrack and deplete oxygen. Shores grow slick, meadows vanish, toxins seep outward. At times, the sea shifts through strange colors—red, green, brown.
Once a giver of life, the bloom now suffocates.
Once a giver of life, the bloom now suffocates.