10 Euros Mannerheim and St. Petersburg

Issued to commemorate the centenary of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's departure for St. Petersburg, where he served in the Imperial Russian Army before eventually commanding Finnish forces in the 1918 Civil War and later the Winter War against the Soviet Union. The coin reflects a deliberate diplomatic ambiguity — celebrating a shared Finnish-Russian historical figure at a moment when Finland was navigating its post-Cold War relationship with Moscow while firmly embedded in the EU, having joined in 1995.

Mannerheim spent nearly three decades in Russian imperial service, rising to lieutenant general before returning to Finland in 1917.