Penedo

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Penedo is a district in the Itatiaia municipality, located in the southern region of Rio de Janeiro state, in Brazil. Founded as a vegan commune by a group of Finnish settlers led by Toivo Uuskallio, it is now a Finland-themed tourist destination. In the 1920s, Uuskallio was inspired by a dream to establish a colony in the tropics, and began gathering followers to move with him to Brazil. He wrote in his 1929 book Matkalla kohti tropiikin taikaa ('On the way to the magic of the tropics'): "I had been invited to leave my homeland and move far to the South. The invitation was strange in that it arrived at night and without a visible messenger. The message came into my soul and awakened my conscious self." Uuskallio, who believed humans were not intended by God to live in cold climates, envisioned the commune as moneyless and free of vehicles, with residents dressing lightly and easing into nudism. Potential colonists were recruited through newspaper advertisements and leaflets; they were required to answer 28 questions, regarding their backgrounds, views on vegetarianism and the use of alcohol and tobacco, and how much capital they could contribute to the founding of the colony. Some followers travelled to Canada to work as foresters in order to raise funds. Over one million Finnish marks were raised for the project, with the fund managed by a pastor, Harri D. Pennanen. In the autumn of 1927, Uuskallio traveled on a cargo ship to Brazil with a small group of pioneers to scout potential sites. On January 28, 1929, Toivo and his wife Margaret Elizabeth Uuskallio (b. 1901, d. 1998, known as Liisa) purchased Fazenda Penedo—a roughly 3,500-hectare former coffee plantation and cattle ranch located about 200 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro—from the financially troubled São Penedo monastery....