Let’s start with England. Solihull looks like an ordinary British town. A few hundred meters long shopping street cuts through the center.
However, Solihull is not an ordinary town. Land Rover SUVs, streamlined Jaguars and chubby Range Rovers whiz through the streets.
Here and there there are centuries-old buildings of value, such as Tudor-style houses, whose white walls are split by thick logs and with small-paned windows.
– If you say you’re from Solihull, people assume you’re rich. The plumber is guaranteed to add the Solihull extra to the bill, laughs Diane Drapersipping coffee from a cardboard mug at a terrace table on a shopping street on a sunny morning.
A kind of millionaire city, then, this by Alexander Stubb spouse By Suzanne Innes-Stubb home town.
Wealth has been created by Land Rover. Solihull is the birthplace of a valuable car brand. Even today Jaguars and Range Rovers are also built in the town of 200,000 inhabitants. The factory located on the corner of the city center produces thousands of luxury cars for the world every week. The factory is the workplace of nearly 11,000 people.
On the map, Solihull does look like a suburb of the million-dollar city of Birmingham.
However, the residents should not be mistaken for Birmingham.
Warns about it Steve Kew, who sells hot potatoes from his stall on the market street. Isn’t that why the people of Solihull feel that they are better people?
– That’s exactly why, Kew nods.
– Unlike many other places, it lacks an edge here, he adds admiringly.
And that’s exactly why well-to-do residents have moved to Solihull over the years. Self-employed, entrepreneurs, families who can afford to live outside the center of Solihull in large manor-like houses.
Solihull has streets with houses average price according to Lloyds bank, rises to well over a million euros.
Solihull is located in the West Midlands region of central England, and I guess it can thank it for its lack of edge.
Northern English people are known for being loud and cheerful, and people from the south are considered quick-witted and quick-witted. The Middle English are neither, but a colorless middle class overshadowed by the north and the south, who value their comfortable, orderly lives.
However, the guide for the city tour will be a very good-natured and talkative Solihull resident, a retired history teacher Laurence Ince.
Ince admits that despite the wealth, Solihull has a lot of mediocrity. In the Brexit referendum, the result was exactly the same as in the national vote. 51 percent voted for leaving the EU, 49 percent voted against.
The typical food of Solihull residents also sounds the same as elsewhere: sausage and mashed potatoes, reveals the high school student Elijah Cohen.
We pass by an impressive red brick building. The roots of the Solihull School private school are in the 16th century.
– There are many private schools here, where schoolchildren also come from other places, Ince says.
Even schoolchildren cannot come up with a word of reproach from their hometown.
– People here are wealthy and like to spend money, he describes Lauren Ashley16, local people.
Ashley and her friends have settled into neat, chalk-striped school uniforms.
– There is a lot to do here and many kinds of people. Much cooler than in many other cities, he praises Mark Barrow17.
The video below shows just how well known Suzanne Innes-Stubb is in Solihull:
The information about Solihull’s connection to the Finnish presidential election has not yet reached the town, but now they are hearing about it, and they are raving about the information.
– Wonderful, gasped most of them.
– I’m going to tell everyone I know about it, especially if her husband becomes president. We can say that she is a daughter of Solihull and one of the many interesting people in our town, enthuses Laurence Ince.
And then to Ecuador
Aquiles Arrimedes has woken up early and driven to his favorite cafe.
He is a native of Esmeraldas and a news anchor for local television. With more than 50 years of work behind him, Arrimedes started working as a journalist as a teenager.
Now he wants to put us on the map via video call.
Esmeraldas is located in the northern part of Ecuador, next to Colombia, and is therefore Pekka Haaviston spouse by Antonio Flores home town. The climate is tropical and the sand on the beaches bordering the Pacific Ocean is white.
– Paradise, Arrimedes praises, and that’s what Esmeraldas with its 220,000 inhabitants looks like from the air:
Most of the inhabitants are Afro-Ecuadorians.
– We have an extremely rich culture, which differs in many aspects from the culture of the rest of Ecuador. Here you can see the influence of Africa and we are known as the center of joy, rhythm and dance.
History says that Esmeraldas was founded by descendants of slaves who survived a shipwreck that sank off the town. Arrimenes mentions marimba music as a special source of pride.
Recently, however, the cheerful rhythms of Emeraldas have been overshadowed by violence. The city is one of the centers of the cocaine smuggling route.
The drugs travel to North America and Europe from the international port of Esmeraldas.
Numerous gangs fight over the drug trade. As a result of gang violence, murders and kidnappings have become commonplace in Esmeraldas.
– Previously, this kind of violence was far away, in Mexico and Colombia. Now we have to live with it.
According to Arrimedes, the situation has led to the fact that especially educated young people and many companies have fled Esmeraldas.
Gang members are getting younger and younger, many are children.
– If children can’t go to school and find work, they will look for any way to earn money.
The government of Ecuador has declared war against drug gangs operating in the country. They have been classified as terrorist organizations, and at the beginning of January the president declared a state of emergency for the entire country.
However, according to Arrimedes, the problem cannot be solved with weapons and the intervention of the army.
– The problem is inequality and corruption. The fact that young people have no options.
In the video below, Arrimedes describes his hometown:
And what was it like in Esmeraldas 40 years ago, when Antonio Flores lived his childhood there?
– Esmeraldas was a prosperous city in the middle of wonderful nature. A lot of work was done here, especially on the banana plantations.
The city was one of the most important banana producers in South America. Exports also included shellfish, rubber and other fruits.
The economy flourished, and the city housed the consulates of many European countries.
– We knew our neighbors, we knew each other and there was no need to be afraid. The children were walking alone in the street.
Arrimedes hopes that Esmeraldas will soon be known as the city that will become the spouse of the Finnish president. He says that he read that Haavisto is a world-renowned peace broker.
He also knows how Finland got back on its feet after the wars.
– We hope for a similar development for us as well. Despite the violence, we have not lost hope and joy. The people of Esmeraldas know how to enjoy life.
And about Antonio Flores, Arrimedes still wants to say this:
– Of course we are proud of him.